In case you haven't noticed: We're having an all-out fight down here of government corruptos against opposition corruptos against civil society corruptos. It a sort of started with last week's brawl over the sale of state-owned shares in C&W and electricity companies. And now the government admits that they've run out of money and need to sell these shares to keep poring funds in senseless projects like a four-lane highway around Casco Viejo and of course corruption schemes with overpriced radars.
And then, over the weekend Martinelli opened up another front in this fun war game, by seeking legal help from the Supreme Court, which he dominates, to get rid of the magistrates of the Electoral Tribunal, which he doesn't dominate yet. Why? Because he wants that Tribunal for himself so he can commit election fraud. The Martinellistas did a small test with that in a place called El Bebedero, but it turned out the Electoral Tribunal doesn't want to play along.
Within hours after Martinelli's move became known, he promised he would withdraw the legal case, and reportedly called the magistrates of said Tribunal to apologize. And, because Martinelli NEVER does what he promises, the country is in total uncertainty of what will happen next.
Bottom line is that he needs money and he needs to extend his rule beyond the 2014 elections because that is what he promised his illicit donors (remember that some of his family (and the CD treasurer) sits in jail in Mexico for massive narco money laundering).
Even foreign investors are starting to run away, to Barbados, from this cesspool of corruption and mediocrity: Foreign direct investment is down a whopping 15% and expected to tank further.
So maybe it should not come as a total surprise that former Noriega friend and current Martinelli bitch Mayín Correa, governor of the Province of Panama, in a dramatic turn of events announced that she wants to die. "It's better to be dead than to have to give up a lawsuit against the Electoral Tribunal", the crow-voiced governor declared in La Prensa. Too bad euthanasia isn't legal in Panama, for we would be glad to help. But maybe someone can send her the proper pills?
You summed it up correctly in the intro two criminal gangs want absolute political power and a third criminal gang the rabi blancos the same to continue building their monopolies.
Like other gangsters either group will use blackmail, intimidation, frivolous lawsuits, homicide you name it to protect or enlarge their territories.
Like gangs they make pacts and truces that soon fall apart to insatiable greed.