The decision of the Electoral Tribunal (TE) not to recognize the two candidacies of former President Ricardo Martinelli should serve to make a profound reflection on our electoral regime. Only eight days before the elections, the composition of the electoral offer for the second position of importance in the country, that of the mayor of the district of Panama, was defined. However, the proximity of the decision to the elections left a high level of uncertainty. In a divided decision, the magistrates had to discuss in detail the concept of electoral residence and determine that Martinelli had not been in Panama for the time necessary to be a candidate.

With this decision, the Electoral Tribunal closes some gaps in the existing legislation. But it worries that this organism had to wait for a denunciation of impugnation to avoid this nonsense.

Similarly, it seems that the TE is unarmed in the face of abuses in the electoral process, depending on a prosecutor who is complicit in many mockeries of democracy. Perhaps we are in time to prevent the great institutional crisis that exists in other parts of the world. It is not fair to expect other controversies to clean up the system, nor to allow the electoral process to be abused in order to seek impunity before the courts -LAPRENSA, Apl. 27