Page 48 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

of their allotments if they took people to the opposition rally in the
capital. Panem et circenses but no freedom. See exhibit 10. Bus
owners in other parts of the country were very probably also
coerced.
On the other hand, some of the buses bringing people in from the
provinces were stopped at the La Chorrera toll booth and not
allowed to proceed to Panama.
It should be explained at this point that, since 1968, public
transportation in Panama has been controlled by the Guard.
The National Guard assigns bus owners to the different routes.
These permits are known as “allotments”. They may be withdrawn,
denied, or not renewed at the sole discretion of the Defense Forces.
This is a powerful weapon, and the General Staff used it freely to
hamper ADO rallies and aid those of the UNADE.

3. On April 28, ADO held a rally at La Chorrera. La Prensa reported
on the following day that “the rally… had some problems. For a
couple of days, the park [where the rally was to be held] has been
without electricity while, curiously enough, all the adjacent areas
have had no power outages. In addition, hundreds of people waiting
alongside the Pan American Highway were unable to go to La
Chorrera because there were no buses to transport them”.
Two things are evident here: 1. Power to the park was cut off; and
2, bus owners were threatened with recalling their allotments so that
their buses would not run that day.

4. The Institute for the Training and Application of Human Resources
(IFARHU), suspended the scholarships it had granted a son of
Gilberto Solis, running for alternate legislator on the PDC ticket,
and to the secretary of the Anton Panameñista Center.

5. At a public event held by the Hydraulic Resources Institute (IRHE)
at Los Santos, on January 20, Barletta addressed the audience, thus
turning an official act into a campaign rally.

6. On May 16, the ADO Campaign Headquarters lost power and
telephone service. This service interruption lasted four days.

It was not sheer coincidence that on that very day the Electoral Tribunal
announced the alleged victory of Barletta. The reader must have by now a rather good
idea that this victory was undoubtedly dishonest, spurious, and fraudulent.

And Barletta would later say that he won fair and square!