Bishop Murray: We cannot deceive the people

Manuel Quintero, QUITO, Ecuador, April 23, 2004

Barely two weeks before general elections and when the four president candidates enter the final Taxi Heathrow Airport stretch, the Rev. Julio Murray, Anglican Bishop of Panama warned about the tendency to “overwhelm the people with proposals that will be difficult to carry out” and said “people are aware of the reality and cannot be deceived.”

“In the face of the nation’s realities, the situation of unemployment, the financial crisis, problems with social security, violence and corruption, we need realistic proposals and not mere electoral promises,” said Bishop Murray who traveled to Quito for a Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) finance commission and executive committee meeting.

The Anglican prelate said that after 21 years of militarism and two democratic elections, the general elections that will take place May 2 should constitute “a festival of democracy, in which the voting population can exercise their rights in a framework of citizen participation. It is the most important event in the country’s democracy life,” he said.

However, each time the people have the opportunity to freely participate to elect their leaders, there are some who try to “ruin the festival with arguments that want us to regress in history, where the times demand original and creative proposals that take us to the future.”

In order for it to be an authentic democratic festival it is imperative that we overcome the personal attacks and diatribes between candidates, essentially all of the “politicking” that has traditionally characterized electoral processes in the past, he said.

Three candidates from traditional parties and one independent candidate are vying for the presidential chair next Sunday.

Businessman Ricardo Martinelli, head of a supermarket chain, a sugar refinery and other businesses, is the independent candidate and the farthest behind, according to polls that give him barely 7 percent of the voter preference.

Jose Miguel Aleman, who was foreign minister during the current Mireya Moscoco government is the ruling party candidate and has the support of 16 percent of the electorate.

Former President Guillermo Endara, who claims to represent that political current of Arnulfo Arias, a key figure in Panamanian political life last century, is in second place with 30 percent of the voter preference.

Finally Martin Torrijos, son of the disappeared military officer and head of state Omar Torrijos is running on a Partido Revolucionario Democratic slate and heads the polls with 48 percent support.

In their campaigns, the four have referred to the need to sign a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, job creation and the need to combat corruption as priorities for the government. They have also promised to support small businesses and to shore up the agriculture sector to combat unemployment and poverty.

According to Bishop Murray, these proposals need to be backed with clear, concrete plans that do not merely respond to party lines and interests but rather a national project.

“The proposals surrounding trade agreements, the FTAA or a (bilateral) FTA, have not been sufficiently discussed. It is fundamental that the electorate really knows what these treaties consist of and what their implications are. They must also know what alternatives exist so that Panamanian producers are able to compete in conditions of greater equality in the face of a giant with state-subsidized markets,” he said.

Moreover, he also said it is important to go beyond the strictly national and short-term solutions. “Panama is part of a concert of nations, beginning with Central America nations and the policies that are applied in our country will have consequences on our relationships in this regional context and in a much broader framework, because we live in a globalized world,” he said.

“As a Church we want to see viable proposals that help to promote life and not the signs of death that accompany us on a daily basis. We want these proposals to lead us to practices that are not excluding and help the integral development of our people.”

The people of Panama want justice, the opportunity to work and earn a living and to participate and contribute, from our uniqueness, in the life of other countries in the region. And these steps will lead us to increasingly consolidate this national project that is Panama, said Bishop Murray.