politics

Candidates focus on crime issue

All of the presidential candidates have said that crime is a serious issue.

The criticism of the country's crime problem by presidential candidates is not limited to those who are seeking to unseat the ruling government.

Now, even senior members of the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD) are criticizing President Martín Torrijos for not doing more to address the problem.

Juan Carlos Navarro, the Panama City mayor who was defeated in his bid to be the party's presidential nominee, said that the government needed to take an “iron fist” approach to battling crime, and criticized the Torrijos administration.

Balbina Herrera, who defeated Navarro in the PRD primary, has also said the country needs to address its crime problem.

Yesterday in Santiago, where she was attending patriotic parades, Herrera said the streets of Panama have been overtaken by drug traffickers.

Without criticizing the government directly, the PRD candidate said that the way against drug trafficking in Panama needs to be conducted internationally, with countries working together to defeat them.

She will meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Nov. 25 to discuss the problem. Herrera has already met with Colombia President Alvaro Uribe and Costa Rica President Óscar Arias, and plans to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

“I said to President Uribe, 'you are doing an extraordinary work against drug trafficking, but the bad people are going to Panama,' ” Herrera said.

For his part, the opposition candidate Ricardo Martinelli, who was also in Santiago, said the government is doing nothing against the crime wave.

He said that keeping Daniel Delgado Diamante as minister of Government and Justice to combat crime sends a negative message, considering the minister's own legal problems.

A similar sentiment was expressed by opposition candidate Juan Carlos Varela, who was also in Santiago to meet with supporters. Varela said that allowing Delgado Diamante to stay in office is the wrong thing to do.