Panama bans ex-leader Martinelli from presidential elections
The Panamanian electoral tribunal has barred former President Ricardo Martinelli from running in May’s presidential elections following a 10-year prison sentence he received for money laundering.
The body, which oversees the country’s electoral process, reached a decision on Monday evening after 10 hours of debate. A statement said his disqualification was due to the fact that he had been sentenced to more than five years in prison for an intentional crime.
Panama’s Supreme Court last month rejected Mr. Martinelli’s appeal against a money laundering conviction in a case in which prosecutors said money was obtained from government contractors to purchase a publishing company in 2010.
A few days after the court ruling, 71-year-old Martinelli, a conservative businessman who led Panama from 2009 to 2014, was granted asylum by Nicaragua and fled to the embassy in Panama City, the capital.
Panama’s Foreign Ministry has rejected Nicaragua’s request to allow Mr. Martinelli to leave the country, citing an international agreement on political asylum that states countries cannot grant asylum to people who are “duly persecuted ” are for non-political crimes.
Mr. Martinelli has said he is innocent and the victim of political persecution, accusing the current president and vice president of trying to kill him to prevent him from coming to power.
Mr. Martinelli’s spokesman, Luis Eduardo Camacho, on Tuesday called the tribunal’s decision “illegal” and accused the organization of procedural violations. “There is no rule of law in Panama, and we are in the middle of a civilian dictatorship,” he told The New York Times.
The electoral tribunal allows Mr. Martinelli’s running mate, a former Public Security Minister named José Raúl Mulino, to run for president in his place.
“Martinelli is Mulino and Mulino is Martinelli,” Mr. Camacho said simply.
Erasmo Pinilla, a former member of the election tribunal, said Mr Martinelli’s team could ask the tribunal to reconsider its decision. But he said there were no grounds for a reversal because Panama’s constitution bars anyone sentenced to five years or more for intentionally committing a crime from becoming president.
“Like any decision, it can be reconsidered by the people who adopt it, but in this case they cannot change anything,” he said. “There is a constitutional mandate, a legal mandate and a court decision.”
The decision leaves a handful of other presidential candidates. One of them, Ricardo Lombana, a former diplomat, wrote on the social media platform
Polls showed Martinelli as one of the leading candidates in the election. His supporters noted that he presided over Panama during a period of strong economic growth, including a multibillion-dollar expansion of the Panama Canal.
He has faced previous criminal investigations. In 2021, he was acquitted on charges of wiretapping opponents and journalists. He was also involved in an ongoing lawsuit related to a multinational bribery scandal involving the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
As the political drama unfolds, Mr. Martinelli seems at home in the Nicaraguan embassy. One video on his X account shows him working out on a treadmill. In a photo posted Tuesday morning, he was smiling in a hammock with Bruno, his dog, cradled in his arms.
In apparent reference to the Electoral Court decision, he wrote: “I woke up happy. The people who believe this is the epilogue of a book should know that this is the prologue of the same book.