by As Panama enters its bustling Carnival period, this weekend’s celebrations come amid a strange political drama unfolding in the capital.
A former president, who is also a leading contender in this year’s presidential election in May, has taken refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama City, accompanied by his furniture, including a sofa and a desk, as well as his dog, Bruno.
Ricardo Martinelli, a 71-year-old conservative businessman who ran Panama from 2009 to 2014, was granted asylum from Nicaragua this week after Panama’s Supreme Court denied his appeal of a money laundering conviction that carried a 10-year prison sentence. .
Martinelli, who has faced other criminal investigations, maintains not only that the case is politically motivated, but also that the president and vice president of Panama want to kill him.
Instead of going to prison, he said he intends to continue his presidential campaign from the embassy grounds, even though Panama’s Constitution prohibits anyone who has been sentenced to five years or more from intentionally committing a crime.
“You have to be very cowardly to disqualify a presidential candidate who is in first place in the polls,” he said in a statement posted Wednesday on X, the social media platform. And he added: “That is an attack on democracy.”
Some center have shown that Mr. Martinelli is the favorite. The electoral court has made it clear that he would be disqualified from participating in the upcoming elections.
Panama’s Foreign Ministry said Friday afternoon that it would not accept Nicaragua’s request to allow Mr. Martinelli’s safe passage to its country, citing an article from an international agreement on political asylum, ratified by Nicaragua and Panama, which states that countries cannot grant asylum to people who have been “duly prosecuted” for common crimes.
Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry later responded to Panama’s refusal, saying that political asylum must be respected as a humanitarian right.
Martinelli’s spokesman, Luis Eduardo Camacho, said Panama’s decision on safe passage was not a surprise “because this is not a democracy. “This is a savage state of law.”
Fernando Gómez-Arbeláez, a lawyer in Panama who specializes in international law, said allowing Martinelli to flee the country would be a national shame.
“The government of Panama is aware that allowing Martinelli to leave the country in this way would be a mockery of gigantic proportions to the Panamanian justice system,” Gómez-Arbeláez said.
As of Friday night, it was unclear whether Panamanian authorities had issued a warrant to arrest Mr. Martinelli.
Martinelli was convicted last July in a case in which prosecutors said funds were obtained from government contractors for the purchase of a publishing house in 2010. In addition to the prison sentence, he was fined $19 million.
The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
Several days after the Supreme Court denied his appeal, Martinelli filed a criminal complaint with Panama’s National Assembly, accusing Panama’s president and vice president of attempted murder. The complaint alleged that a person close to the president’s office had warned of a plot to kill Mr. Martinelli to prevent him from becoming president.
The current president, Laurentino Cortizo, has denied the accusation.
While the country’s news headlines focused on Martinelli’s situation, the streets of Panama City were congested on Friday with people rushing to do their shopping before the start of Carnival, a holiday celebrated four days before Wednesday. of Ceniza and that includes parades and dances in the streets. at night.
Some said they supported Mr. Martinelli, noting how he had led the country through a period of strong economic growth, accompanied by a multibillion-dollar expansion of the Panama Canal.
At a bus terminal, Tais Saldaña, a 23-year-old speech therapy student, said she had planned to vote for Martinelli and that, if it weren’t for the festivities, people would have come out to protest to support him.
“Politics is dirty,” Saldaña said. “The fact that he is disqualified takes away the Panamanian’s opportunity to choose freely, to support a candidate who, due to his experience or what he has done in previous years, is the favorite of Panamanians.”
At the entrance to the Panama Canal, Joel Alvarado, a 28-year-old driver, said he did not believe Martinelli was a victim of political persecution. “He has done good things, that is true, but that does not justify robbing us; That we work every day and they steal our taxes is not fair,” he stated.
Although Nicaragua is led by a left-wing government, the conservative Martinelli said in an interview with CNN a few days ago that he has “great affection and appreciation for Nicaragua.”
Nicaragua has become increasingly authoritarian and its officials have faced sanctions from the United States for stripping political dissidents of their citizenship. The country has also seized the properties of its critics.
But Nicaragua has a history of providing safe haven to politicians under criminal investigation, said Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington.
In the last decade, for example, Nicaragua has granted refuge to two former presidents of El Salvador.
Mr. Martinelli has faced previous criminal investigations. In 2021, he was acquitted of charges of wiretapping opponents and journalists. He has also been implicated in a pending legal case related to a multinational bribery scandal involving Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
When asked for comment on the situation in Panama, the State Department mentioned that it had previously expelled Mr. Martinelli from the United States for accepting bribes in exchange for awarding government contracts while serving as president.
“The United States and Panama promote shared democratic values of accountability, rule of law and transparency,” he said in a statement.
Mary Triny Zea contributed reporting from Panama City.
