The Grapes of Corruption

La Prensa has reported that, in the lecture Carlos Alberto Montaner gave last night at the National Library, the Cuban writer and journalist stressed that it is necessary to isolate socially the politicians involved in acts of corruption. In my opinion, Montaner’s position should be shared by everyone who aspires to clean up our decadent homegrown politics before the democratic institutions of our country collapse onto their foundations.

President Moscoso seems to have an approach to the subject diametrically opposed to Montaner’s, as she let it be understood at an official event in Las Tablas, where she effusively praised Carlos Afú, and even danced a tamborito1 with him. By then, Afú had already publicly confessed to having received 6 thousand dollars for his vote approving the contract-law for the CEMIS project, thus uncovering the most notorious corruption scandal of the last few decades of Panamanian history.

The underlying reason for Moscoso and Afú’s dance has long intrigued me. Why does the President not only make no effort to distance herself from a politician who has received money for his vote, as he himself confessed—cash in hand—on national television, but go so far as to dance with him and praise him publicly at an official event? I do not know yet, but there comes to mind an immortal line from the shrewd blind man of El Lazarillo de Tormes, when—after sharing a bunch of grapes with the young rascal—he says to him:

“I’ll swear to God that thou hast eaten the grapes three at a time. […] Knowest thou how I see that thou atest them three by three? In that I was eating them two by two and thou heldest thy peace.”