Page 17 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

The Anatomy of a fraud does not only justify this judgment; it furthers and
enhances it. For this anatomy of the fraud is also a revealing study of how an
antidemocratic and corrupt regime, caught in the throes of its own decomposition,
had resorted to fraud to perpetrate itself. In showing this regime for what it is, this
incisive dissection identifies the major entities and functions of political corruption
used by the regime to survive its own decay. Those entities and functions must be
forcefully indicted and done away with to resume the road to democratization.
Seen from a unique perspective, this anatomy of the fraud becomes the blueprint
for the inevitable struggle to continue the democratization process.

The fraud prevented democratic opposition forces from reaching their goal at
the 1984 elections: ensuring the peaceful transition from the Torrijista regime to a
true democracy. But the scandalous evidence of the fraud also prevented the
regime from attaining its objective, which was not only staying in power but, more
importantly, convincing public opinion that Panama had democratized itself under
the rule of the military. As it turned out, the antidemocratic and corrupt nature of
the regime stood out plainly for all to see.

As one comes to the end of Arias de Para’s book –a book without precedent in
Panamanian political bibliography because of the sharpness of its political analysis
and the courage of its convictions– the wrath that overtakes the reader fails to turn
into hopelessness or, much less, into cynicism. Quite the contrary, it turns into a
commitment to continue the struggle. Democratization continues to be the great,
the fundamental task of our nation. The need for it is more evident, more urgent,
more binding than ever before.

Ricardo Arias Calderón