Page 53 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

the electoral fraud from its front page, Ya adopted a resigned posture and expressed
the willingness to let bygones be bygones.

Summing up, then: during the 1984 campaign, the press score card went
something like this: La Estrella was partial towards the regime; ERSA was
unconditionally in favor of Barletta and engaged in a gutter-level campaign of lies and
insults; La Prensa adopted a courageous and forthright position, especially in its
denunciations of the fraud.

B. Radio

Panama is not a country of readers; La Prensa seldom exceeds a 40,000
copies circulation. It is, however, a radio listening country, especially between 6 and 9
in the morning. During these radio prime time hours, thousands listen to numerous
stations offering a truly varied fare: from the most childish and absurd topics to serious
discussions of important national issues, interspersed with music of Vivaldi. As was to
be expected, political commentary monopolized radio time during the campaign. Party
spokesmen, allowed to freely express their views, made the rounds in the talk show
circuit. But as May 6 drew closer, radio personalities who had earlier boasted of their
independence began to show an increased partiality towards the regime. A similar
phenomenon was evident among the major radio stations. Eventually, the government
dropped its mask of apparent neutrality and unleashed an open persecution against its
adversaries.
For instance, during the campaign’s final weeks, at the very moment when
political advertising is most effective, stations with high ratings declined to broadcast
ADO commercials or sharply cut back on them. Leading opposition candidates were
denied airtime and those that somehow managed to get to a microphone had to endure
the overt hostility of the moderators, no longer posing as honest brokers. Some radio
stations refused to broadcast paid public speeches by ADO leaders.

At the same time Barletta advertising soared and the candidate personally
visited some of the most widely listened talk shows, the very shows that would not let
Arias’s vice-presidential candidates set foot in their studios. The authorities went as far
as to attempt to revoke the license of Radio Barú, the opposition station in Chiriquí.

In Panama, the daily commentary program directed by Guillermo Cochez,
vice president of the Christian Democratic Party, and this writer, was arbitrarily
canceled on May 1. The same fate befell the evening talk show hosted by Dr. Carlos
Arellano Lennox, also a Christian Democratic Party vice president, and the noon
commentary program of Mario J. de Obaldía, an opposition liberal with ties to the PPA.
It is worth noticing that all three politicians ran for legislator and that all of them were
proclaimed the winners by their respective circuit boards.