On the President’s Statements

The statements of the President of the Republic surprised me. What surprised me was not the fact that drug traffickers disguised as honest businessmen and shielded behind law firms have invested thousands of dollars in the presidential campaigns. That is to be expected from people of that ilk. In that sense, I am convinced that other companies with illicit funds have made and will go on making—secretly—contributions to the political campaigns of all the candidates, government and opposition alike. This is because no one in the middle of an electoral campaign, having to handle thousands of matters at once (speeches, meetings, advertising, and paperwork), has the time to review each contribution to his campaign, digging into where it came from. The opposition candidates must have unknowingly taken the narco-dollar bait, in exactly the same way as El Toro. Only, since El Toro is in power, the attention is fixed on him and his campaign. So that was not what surprised me, but rather these two matters:

Surprise No. 1: the fantastic way in which the most arch-ultra-mega-super-duper-top-secret information leaks to the media abroad, such as The Economist, The New York Times, and The Miami Herald. That network of “news espionage,” which allowed those newspapers to find out about the dirty money before El Toro himself, makes me think that the media abroad must know more about my own life than I do. Maybe they know what color the underpants I am wearing right now are. The international press mafia: marvelous and terrible at the same time!

Surprise No. 2: the quick, efficient, diplomatic, and ultra-honest way in which our Most Excellent Mister President has handled this embarrassing and besmirching situation. A scandal of this nature is enough to bring down an entire government, as was seen in the Samper case. But El Toro is very intelligent, with an enviable way with words, and besides, he knows which way the wind blows. He himself came out to confess that the narcos caught him by surprise, because he knew nothing. With his statements on Saturday he has convinced me that he is a great public man, interested in (and fully capable of) keeping his image as spotless and untarnished as possible, so that no one can speak ill of his honesty or rectitude. This is an indispensable requirement in a good President. (Unfortunately, El Toro does not meet many other equally indispensable requirements.)

Now the question is: are we going to believe him that he didn’t know? I publicly confess that I, Roberto Pérez-Franco, in full use of my mental and legal faculties, and under no pressure of any kind; I confess—I repeat—that I do believe El Toro that he did not know about that ill-gotten money. Not so much because I believe him, but because I need to believe him.

Perhaps I am being naive, but if in this country we cannot trust even the President of the Republic, then who the hell are we going to trust? If we do not think him an honest man, then who is honest in this country? If we do not believe in him, then we really are lost in corruption.

Besides that, El Toro is a millionaire, thanks to the quickness of his hands. He himself put millions of dollars out of his own pocket into his campaign. So, is El Toro going to get himself publicly covered in the shit of drug trafficking in exchange for a lousy 51 thousand dollars? Not in your dreams! El Toro has not the slightest need to risk an international scandal, not for 51 thousand dollars and not for 51 million dollars.

No, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I do give El Toro the benefit of the doubt. For me he will be innocent until proven otherwise.

Although I did not vote and would never vote for Ernesto Pérez Balladares, and although the international newspapers may say whatever they please, the President deserves a fair chance to prove that he is innocent. And I will gladly give it to him.

I want to quote here a passage from the immortal Khalil Gibran, the brilliant Lebanese poet and philosopher (one of the greatest in history, in my opinion).

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox [...] Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

If El Toro is innocent, nothing has happened. If he is guilty, then let the full weight of justice and all the wrath of our deceived people fall upon him.