Despite a declaration by the US  State Department that former president  Ricardo Martinelli participated in “significant acts of corruption” by accepting bribes in exchange for government contracts, he remains undeterred in his intention to run for a return to office in the 2024 elections.

The designation includes members of his immediate family who will be barred from entering the United States. recently arrived ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte, said that "it will not be the last designation in Panama."

Martinelli is the first Panamanian to be publicly described as a corrupt official. The Department of State based the action on section 7031(c) of the Department of State Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2023, which allows the Secretary of State to take the action when he has credible information of direct or indirect involvement in acts of significant corruption.

On Wednesday, when Martinelli was reunited with his children who served time in New York after pleading to money laundering to hide $28 million in bribes from Odebrecht. The money was transferred to Panama at the behest of their father they told the court.

Their reunion, in spite of carefully crafted Twitter messages by the former president and First Lady, must have been a tense affair.