Page 29 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

candidate and certain loose ends had to be tied, i.e., the remaining presidential hopefuls
2
had to be persuaded to give up their vain quests.
A technocrat par excellence, utterly incapable of firing up a crowd, away from
the country six years, with no power base in the party (of which he was not even a
member), Barletta was hard to swallow. But he had the support of the Guard and,
presumably, of the United States. And with such sponsors, very few Panamanian
politicians do not allow themselves to be “convinced”.

Therefore, on January 6, 1984, at the Tinajitas barracks, the PRD leaders and
the General Staff of the Defense Forces held another meeting and tapped Barletta as
the PRD’s official candidate for president of the republic.

The news created a commotion ACAN-EFE got it on the wire to its
correspondents throughout the world, describing the meeting as follows: “The leaders
of the pro-government Democratic Party (PRD) announced the candidacy of Dr. Ardito
Barletta, a former cabinet member and officer of the World Bank, for president at the
forthcoming May elections. The PRD leaders held a meeting with the Commander of
the Defense Forces, General Manuel Antonio Noriega. Reportedly, there was great joy
and support for the nomination at the meeting”.

The Defense Forces, suddenly concerned about their image, flatly denied
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having influenced the PRD’s decision. They even filed a complaint against ACAN-
EFE, accusing the agency of “disinformation”. ACAN-EFE “explained” the news item
but did not retract its statement. And the question thousands of Panamanians kept
asking themselves was the same La Prensa advanced in its editorial column “Hoy por
Hoy” on January 12: “What brought about the miracle that Ardito Barletta’s
presidential nomination, one of the many being heatedly discussed before the meeting,
turned at Tinajitas into the undisputed PRD’s presidential ticket?”.

The miracle probably took place when the General Staff of the Armed Forces
“suggested” in no uncertain term Barletta’s name, instantly creating a democratic
consensus.

2
Ernesto Pérez Balladares, a former Finance Minister and Secretary General of the PRD, a protégé of
Torrijos, seen by many as the favorite candidate of the party’s rank and file, refused to accept the diktat
imposing Barletta. At a revealing press conference called by him on February 15, Pérez Balladares said:
“Semi-official emissaries keep coming. Someone would come up to me and say: ‘They just called me
and told me that if you talked, they were going to throw you in jail’. …You all know who puts people
in jail in this country”. “He also emphasized that the Defense Forces ought to step out of politics… La
Prensa, February 16, 1984. Page 10C.
3
A study entitled The Presidential and Legislative Elections in Panama, July 9, 1984, prepared by
the Center for Strategic & International Studies of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., States on
page 19 that “… [Barletta’s] selection was largely possible thanks to the support of Noriega and other
elements in the Defense Forces”.