Page 99 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

to watch what was happening so that I could bear testimony to something that I would
42
not otherwise have believed: that such police brutality could occur in Panama…”.
And thus the 1984 presidential campaign came to a close. Ransacked
opposition headquarters; numerous ADO supporters beaten and in hospitals or under
arrest at the Model Prison; and Barletta, the candidate who had lost the election, being
handed his credentials as president elect, credentials that were not only spurious and
fraudulent but also stained by violence and death.

Lastly, exhibit 42 includes photographs showing the damages done to ADO
headquarters. It should be borne in mind that the electoral campaign had not ended,
form municipal elections were scheduled for June 3. For this reason, the ADO
campaign headquarters contained valuable information on precincts and other electoral
documents that guardsmen, in their zeal to protect law and restore order, dumped into
the ocean. It was not by accident that the PRD won a good number of mayoral and
representative’s races.

In the next and last chapter of this book we shall study the results shown by
precinct tally sheets in possession of the ADO parties. These documents point to a clear
and legitimate victory by Arias. Lastly, we shall record national and foreign reaction
to this shameful episode in Panamanian contemporary history.

But before going on to the last chapter, it is advisable to summarize the main
points of this second chapter dealing with the elections and the counting of the votes.

There were at least five types of fraud:

1. The so-called “cybernetic” fraud, i.e., the tampering with official
voter lists, the creation of “fictitious listings” and the unjustifiable
“Special Listing”.

2. The second kind of fraud was the wide distribution of spurious voter
cards and the massive and systematic vote-buying that went on in
San Blas in the central provinces, particularly in Herrera and Los
Santos.

3. The arbitrary challenges strategy used by UNADE to take votes
away from ADO, which resulted in incorrect circuit tally sheets that
prepared the ground for a victory that never was.

4. The stealing of the circuit and precinct tally sheets in the Guaymí
Indian district, in Chiriquí (Circuit 4-4) and its subsequent forgery

42 Op. cit. June 5, 1984, page 1A.