Noriega Party Claims Victory in Panama Race

A man who U.S. troops captured and interrogated during the 1989 invasion that ousted Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega claimed victory Sunday in Panama’s freest presidential elections in decades.

Ernesto Perez Balladares, candidate of the political party that served as a front for Noriega’s dictatorship throughout the 1980s, was leading a field of seven contenders with 52% of the vote counted, the national Election Tribunal said.

“A trend has been maintained that indicates we won these elections,” Perez Balladares said in a news conference late Sunday at a Panama City hotel. “The trend is irreversible.”

He had about a third of the vote and was followed by Mireya Moscoso de Gruber of the ruling Arnulfista Party. One exit poll conducted for Panamanian television gave second place to salsa musician and Hollywood actor Ruben Blades, but he trailed in the official returns.

Panama’s first presidential election since the invasion was seen as a test of whether democracy will take root in this country after a long history of domination by the army or the United States.

It was the first time in 25 years that Panamanians could choose a president without the specter of military dictatorship, and the first time in more than three decades that the results were likely to be respected.

The new government will be responsible for preparing Panama to take over the vital Panama Canal in the year 2000.

The past ties of Perez Balladares’ Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) to Noriega and the military worried and frightened opponents. But the candidate was apparently able to conserve his party’s traditional base while tapping into a strong protest vote among Panamanians angry at the pro-business government of President Guillermo Endara, which to many seemed inept and uncaring toward the poor.

Sunday’s voting was, on the whole, orderly. Numerous polling stations opened late as workers awaited the arrival of cardboard ballot boxes. But few other problems and no major incidents of violence were reported, in marked contrast to past elections, where voters were often intimidated, ballots stolen and results canceled.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter led a team of more than 1,200 international observers who were deployed throughout the country to guarantee clean voting.

The last time Panamanians tried to vote for president, in May, 1989, Noriega annulled the results when his handpicked candidate, Carlos Duque, lost to Endara. Endara and his vice presidential candidates were roughed up by Noriega’s agents, and a few months later the invasion was launched.

The invading troops swore Endara into office at a hasty ceremony on a U.S. military base. Noriega was eventually captured and is serving a 40-year drug-trafficking sentence in a Florida prison.

Perez Balladares, known as “the Bull” because of his hefty build, is a longtime leader of the PRD. He ran Duque’s campaign and continues to be surrounded by several party stalwarts who were close to Noriega or who were linked to corruption in the past.

But Perez Balladares, a millionaire businessman schooled at the University of Pennsylvania and Notre Dame, campaigned tirelessly to distance himself and the party from Noriega. He insisted that the party has been restructured and purged of many Noriega collaborators.

“Today’s party has nothing to do with Noriega,” he said in an interview last week.

Officially, the U.S. government is neutral in the elections, and Clinton Administration officials said they will work with whoever wins. But the irony of the return of a party ousted by the invasion was lost on no one.

“When you support democracy,” one diplomat said, “sometimes you get better, and sometimes you get worse.”

Perez Balladares, 47, has said he will consider renegotiation of the Panama Canal treaties, which require 10,000 U.S. troops stationed here to withdraw by the year 2000. Many Panamanians fear that closing the U.S. military bases will deal a devastating blow to the economy.

On the night of the invasion--Dec. 20, 1989--Perez Balladares, as a senior PRD militant, was arrested by U.S. troops and questioned for several hours before being released, he said. He also said his house was ransacked and his elderly parents held at gunpoint. Nevertheless, Perez Balladares says his relations with U.S. officials are now cordial.

Hoping to block his victory, Endara broadcast videotapes last month that showed several PRD candidates carousing with and praising Noriega.

Blades, who put his movie career on hold to run for president, returned to Panama from his home in Santa Monica after an absence of nearly two decades.

Although an exit poll gave Blades a second-place finish, Gruber surged in the partial returns and trailed Perez Balladares by only five points.

As the remarried widow of legendary Panamanian perennial President Arnulfo Arias, Gruber is blessed with a well-organized party machine that is especially adept at turning out voters in the countryside and other cities nationwide. She had languished in third or fourth place in most public opinion polls going into Sunday’s election.