As Panama enters its raucous Carnival period, this weekend’s celebrations take place amid a bizarre political drama unfolding in the capital.
A former president, who is also a major contender in this year’s May presidential election, stayed at 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 led Panama from 2009 to 2014, was granted asylum by Nicaragua this week after Panama’s Supreme Court rejected his appeal of a money laundering conviction that carried a 10-year prison sentence.
Mr. Martinelli, who has faced other criminal investigations, claims not only that the case is politically motivated but also that Panama’s president and vice president want to kill him.
Instead of going to prison, he said he plans to continue his presidential campaign from the embassy courtyard, even though Panama’s Constitution bars anyone sentenced to five years or more for intentionally committing a crime from ruling the country.
“You would have to be very cowardly to disqualify a presidential candidate who is first in the polls,” he said in a statement published Wednesday on X, the social media platform. He added: “This is an attack against democracy.”
Some surveys they showed that Martinelli is the favorite. The electoral tribunal strongly implied that he would be disqualified from voting in the next election.
Panama’s Foreign Ministry said Friday evening that it would not grant Nicaragua’s request to allow safe passage for Mr. Martinelli into its country, citing an article of an international agreement on political asylum, ratified by Nicaragua and Panama, according to which countries cannot grant asylum to people who have been “duly prosecuted” for non-political crimes.
Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry then responded to Panama’s refusal, stating 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 rule of law.”
Fernando Gómez-Arbeláez, a Panamanian lawyer specializing in international law, said that allowing Mr. Martinelli to flee the country would be a national embarrassment.
“The government of Panama is aware that letting Martinelli leave the country in this way would be a mockery of gigantic proportions for the Panamanian justice system,” Gómez-Arbeláez said.
It was not clear until Friday evening whether authorities in Panama had issued an arrest order for Mr. Martinelli.
Mr. Martinelli was convicted last July in a case in which prosecutors said funds were obtained from government contractors for the 2010 purchase of a publishing company. In addition to the prison sentence, he was fined $19 million.
The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
Several days after the Supreme Court rejected 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 national headlines focused on the Martinelli situation, the streets of Panama City on Friday were congested with people rushing to do their shopping before the start of Carnival, a holiday celebrated four days before Ash Wednesday that includes parades and dancing in the streets. at night.
Some said they supported Martinelli, pointing out how he led the country during a period of strong economic growth, accompanied by a multibillion-dollar expansion of the Panama Canal.
At the bus station, Tais Saldaña, a 23-year-old speech therapy student, said she planned to vote for Martinelli – and that if it weren’t for the celebrations, people would have turned out to protest to support him.
“Politics is dirty,” Saldaña said. “The fact that he is disqualified takes away the Panamanian’s ability to choose freely, to support a candidate who, due to his experience or what he has done in previous years, is the favorite of the Panamanians.”
At the entrance to the Panama Canal, Joel Alvarado, a 28-year-old driver, said he did not believe Mr. Martinelli was the victim of political persecution. «He has done good things, it is true, but this does not justify them stealing from us; that we work every day and they steal our taxes is not right,” he said.
Although Nicaragua is governed by a left-wing government, the conservative Martinelli said in an interview with CNN a few days ago that he felt “great sympathy 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 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 Washington think tank.
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 wiretapping opponents and journalists. He was also implicated in a pending lawsuit related to a multinational corruption scandal involving the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
Asked about the situation in Panama, the State Department said it had previously banned Martinelli from the United States for accepting scraps in exchange for awarding government contracts while he was president.
“The United States and Panama promote shared democratic values of accountability, rule of law, and transparency,” it said in a statement.
Mary Triny Zea contributed reporting from Panama City.
