Panama's Would-Be President: Guillermo Endara

• Share

The ceremony was rich with symbolism, but the circumstances were awkward, to say the least. Shortly after U.S. troops began to move, a new government was inaugurated with the aim of restoring democracy in Panama. The swearing-in took place at Fort Clayton, a U.S. military base, with only a few Panamanians present. After the new President, Guillermo Endara, and his two Vice Presidents, Guillermo Ford and Ricardo Arias Calderon, took their oath of office, they remained at the base for 36 hours.

Endara's first words to his countrymen on Wednesday were broadcast not by Panamanian radio, which was still controlled by Noriega's forces, but by Radio Impacto in Costa Rica, which had taped him by telephone. On Thursday the new President, under the protection of American soldiers, left the base for his first speech to the National Assembly. He pledged to lead "a government of reconstruction and reconciliation," but by then his fledgling regime distinctly bore the label "Made in U.S.A."

With that inauspicious start, an unseasoned politician inherited a nation in the midst of chaos. A 250-lb. labor lawyer with little political experience before he ran for President in last May's aborted election, Endara must rebuild a society that was seriously damaged by U.S. economic sanctions, then savaged by invasion and ravaged by looters. His support comes mostly from the white business and professional classes in Panama City; he must win over the darker-skinned Panamanians of the barrios and the countryside -- those who felt emboldened and empowered by Noriega's populist anti-Yanqui tirades.

Endara will have to establish his legitimate claim to the Panamanian presidency over Francisco Rodriguez, whom Noriega picked after calling off the election last May. Rodriguez urged Panamanians to resist the U.S. troops, then disappeared. Endara had little international support last week, except from the U.S. Neither the United Nations nor the Organization of American States would accept his ambassadors.

Most foreign experts agree that Endara, the candidate of an eight-party anti-Noriega alliance, won the May presidential election over Carlos Duque. Noriega declared that election null and void, and in the ensuing violence, Endara, Calderon and Ford were beaten by the pro-Noriega vigilante groups known as Dignity Battalions. Endara embarked on a two-week hunger strike to protest Rodriguez's subsequent appointment. After last October's failed coup attempt against Noriega, Endara went into hiding. "Nobody doubts ((his)) courage," says a senior U.S. official, "but it's a lot easier to get yourself beaten up than to put a country together from scratch."

Endara might have an easier time if he were starting from scratch. His biggest challenge is to obtain the loyalty of the 12,000-strong Panama Defense Forces, a militia created and nurtured by Noriega and bent on its own survival. As the nation's police force, the P.D.F. will be essential to maintaining order. But given the army's continuing loyalty to Noriega and the rampant corruption within the officer corps, it is a breeding ground for future plots against any civilian government.