Panama 2018
Yearbook 2018
Panama. According to Countryaah.com, Panama City is the capital city of Panama, a country located in North America. The political temperature was significantly raised during the year ahead of the upcoming presidential election in May 2019. Several corruption scandals highlighted the transparency of the exercise of public authority.
An “ethical pact” between several of the leading parties formed in mid-November was subjected to harsh criticism by Saúl Méndez, presidential candidate for the small left-wing party Front of Democracy (Frente Amplio por la Democracia, FAD), who said it was a arrangements to protect them from just transparency. The criticism was justified because the corruption scandal surrounding the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which became known in December 2016, involved the incumbent President Juan Carlos Varela himself.
- According to Abbreviationfinder: PAN is an three letter acronym for Panama.
At the end of October, it was also revealed that public funds of just over $ 13 million intended for the state sports institute Pandeportes instead went to organizations more or less directly linked to members of Congress and other politicians. The designated politicians belonged to both the ruling Panamist Party (PPA) and two opposition parties. Just before that, Congress had also approved a proposal that certain state institutions should be exempted from the scrutiny of state auditors. About the same time, preliminary investigation of Blue Apple Services’ contacts with the government was initiated during the period 2011-12 and possible bribes of $ 40 million to have mediated contacts between construction companies and the government.
The Odebrecht scandal also cast its shadow over President Varela’s appointments of two new members of the Supreme Court. The Congress, which is dominated by the opposition, said no to the candidates, citing suspicion of bickering. One of the candidates, Ana Lucrecia Tovar de Zarak, was active in Varela’s 2014 election campaign, which put her impartial loyalty to the Constitution in question.
History. – The country’s political and economic evolution is mainly identified with the history of the Canal Zone. The constant claims against the USA keep relations between the two countries in constant tension and arouse a state of restlessness among the population that blames the Americans for their low standard of living. In reality, the Panama finds himself facing the problems that weigh on all the countries of Central America: export based on a single product, illiteracy, misery, insufficient industrialization and instability of political regimes: in the last ten years not one of the last six presidents completed his term. However, communism failed to take root in the country and was outlawed on April 29, 1950. The elections of 1949 marked the return to power of Arnulfo Arias, strongly supported by the chief of police José Antonio Remón. Then began a period of unrest, coups and violence, during which various presidents appeared on the political scene.
On 11 May 1952 José Antonio Remón, who had actually dominated the Panama in recent years, was elected to the highest office of the state and, albeit with dictatorial methods, imposed order in the country. Well assisted by his energetic wife Cecilia, Remón tried to strengthen the national economy by adopting courageous measures, but above all, he obtained from the USA, after sixteen months of negotiations, a new treaty (January 25, 1955) which brought the canon of the Canal to 1,990. $ 000 instead of $ 430,000 under the 1936 treaty.
In January 1955, Remón was assassinated. The vice president José Ramón Quinzado was accused of complicity in the crime and the powers were assumed by Ricardo Arias Espinosa until the election of the new head of state (May 1956) Ernesto de la Guardia jr. who immediately had to face serious unrest and insurrectional attempts. In May 1958 the government suspended constitutional guarantees to quell the unrest.
In July 1956 the city of Panama was the seat of the conference of American presidents at the end of which a “Declaration” was approved which reaffirmed continental solidarity and the condemnation of totalitarianism. On the occasion of the London conference on the Suez affair, Fr. in a note to Great Britain (15 August 1956) protested that he had been excluded from the works despite the “fundamental similarity between the Suez and Panamá canals”. The elections of 21 May 1960 recorded the defeat of the National Patriotic Coalition (government party) and the victory of the liberal candidate Roberto F. Chiari.
