Politics

Former Panamanian President Martinelli’s reelection candidacy still up in the air

Panama City, Feb 23 (EFE). – The candidacy of former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) for the May 5 elections is still up in the air, waiting for the Panamanian Electoral Tribunal to officially announce his disqualification.

Martinelli was sentenced on Feb. 2 to 10 years and six months in prison for money laundering, which led him to seek political asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy.

The former president was accused of participating in the “New Business” case, a complex scheme to illegally purchase with public funds Editorial Panamá América S.A. (Epasa), which publishes three newspapers.

More than 20 days after the conviction, the official indictment has not reached the Electoral Tribunal, which publicly reiterated this week that it could not officially disqualify Martinelli until it received the court’s ruling.

A copy of the ruling was delivered to the tribunal on Thursday by a group of lawyers. The electoral body then sent a request to Judge Baloísa Marquínez.

They asked her to “urgently indicate” the veracity of the copy of the sentence presented by the lawyers and to send them a “certification” of the sentence.

“Judge Marquínez has told us that the sentence is still not enforceable, it is not final (…) we have to wait for it to arrive first at the Electoral Tribunal”, said Friday the Tribunal’s Legal director, Rubén Darío González, at the doors of the Supreme Court of Justice.

Mulino, the possible replacement

After his political disqualification, Martinelli placed his trust and publicly asked his supporters to vote for José Raúl Mulino, who was running as vice-president, saying “he will do an even better job than me.”

Mulino is a politician with a long career, having served as Minister of Security, Government, and Justice in Martinelli’s administration. Before that, he was deputy minister and chancellor in the government of Guillermo Endara (1989-1994).

The controversy surrounding the former president’s legal situation has affected the general elections, in which more than 3 million Panamanians will vote for president, vice president, parlamentarians, mayors, and deputies to the Central American Parliament.

Martinelli, a refugee with an arrest warrant

On Thursday, Judge Marquínez ordered Martinelli’s preventive detention for the “New Business” and “Odebrecht” cases that he still has to face.

The detention of the former president is “proportionate and necessary to ensure his appearance in court and to protect the interests of society,” said the judge’s statement.

After the money laundering conviction was confirmed on Feb. 2, when Martinelli’s last appeal to overturn it was rejected, the former president took refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy on Feb. 7, where he remains after being denied safe passage to Nicaragua.

The former president claims that the conviction against him was a political persecution to prevent him from participating in the elections, in which he was one of the favorites.

Martinelli was acquitted twice in a case for illegal wiretapping, but he and his two sons still have to face the “Odebrecht” trial for money laundering.

He is also under investigation in Spain for alleged corruption over bribes paid by the Spanish construction company FCC in Panama and for allegedly spying on a woman on the island of Majorca.EFE

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