It wants to rain. That’s how you say that in Spanish; quiere llover. On the mainland they’ve had the occasional rain already, but not enough to fill up the lakes so now, less than two months before general elections, our beloved government has announced electricity rationing. No more full blast air conditioning everywhere – the MultiPlaza mall uses as much electricity as the entire town of Chitré, in case you didn’t know, so that shopping yeye types don’t have to sweat it while spending the money they stole from the poor – and an excellent opportunity for propaganda about hydroelectric dams that nobody needs.
Meanwhile, on Taboga, where your Bananama Republic newsroom is located, there hasn’t been any rain at all. We hardly leave the island any more, mostly to avoid the election campaign circus raging on the mainland. Every day new polls are published, and it doesn’t seem that Blandón, that insufferable Mr. CleanFace, paladin of foreign financial mafiosi, is gonna make it as mayor of the city. It does look, however, that Juan Carlos Navarro is going to be the next president of Panama. This makes many people happy who think that anyone, anything is better than J.D. Arías, who is Martinelli’s puppet. But then came Frenadeso, the labor union umbrella, with a letter they unearthed from the archives. It’s a letter from Navarro to then dictator and druglord Manuel Antonio Noriega, praising and promising his eternal loyalty. Highlight: “… don’t forget to scold me if I’m too much trouble…” (“acuérdese de regañarme si molesto mucho”).
They’re all the same, of course, the whole clique of degenerates, swine and perverts that make up Panama’s political class. Kleptomaniac Mireya Moscoso plays cheerleader for il capo; a graphic showing which legislators switched party for money has so many arrows and “last seen” points that it looks like a search map for the missing Malaysian airplane, and the designated winner still has Noriega’s excrement on his nose – just like Martinelli himself, by the way.
There is also bad news.
Petaquilla, Panama’s only goldmine, is not doing so well. Month after month, employees take to the streets because they are not being paid. In December of last year, they were protesting. January this year: protesting again. Couple of days ago, there they were again, still demanding to be paid. Suppliers aren’t being paid either, we hear (classic). Their production has decreased dramatically. The stock is trading at 25¢, the lowest in years.
And now it appears that Petaquilla’s chief dodo, the narco Richard Fifer, is in some hot water for writing a cheque for $250k to his wife – and then that cheque bounced. Mrs. de Fifer then filed a criminal complaint, and is now angry that the public ministry, headed by yet another Noriega crony, Ana Belfón, isn’t doing anything.
There are those who maintain that there is something called “sustainable mining”. Maybe so, but not in Panama. No way.
Meanwhile, here on Taboga, residents were able to reverse the rogue and unscrupulous sale of half the municipality, including various islands, to some shady land speculation schemer to the benefit of a rumored oil storage scenario. It took another tumultuous meeting on the picturesque little island to force mayor José Chirú and his henchmen to cancel the entire deal. The sales documents were published by the government itself, but that didn’t stop Chirú, a filthy little weasel who spends most of his time off the island, from blaming newspaper La Prensa for the turmoil because, as he put it, they published things that weren’t true. All we have to do now is wait for the next attempt.
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