Word: panamas
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Panamanians take justifiable pride in their operation of the Panama Canal. Since the U.S. handed the famous waterway over to Panama nine years ago, the independent Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has run it more efficiently, more safely and more profitably than the Americans did. Too bad, most Panamanians say, that their government is still best known for the kind of corruption and waste that has marred the small Central American country's reputation ever since pirates haunted the Caribbean. If they could just run the nation the way they run the canal, Panamanians believe, they could become a world-class...
Given that national angst, it's less surprising that conservative tycoon Ricardo Martinelli upset Panama's powerful ruling party on Sunday to win the presidency in a landslide. Martinelli, 57, is a U.S.-educated free-marketeer, a millionaire whose business empire includes supermarkets, banks and agricultural firms. Just as important, earlier in this decade Martinelli was chairman of the Panama Canal's board of directors and Minister of Canal Affairs when the ACP decided on a $5.25 billion expansion of the canal, approved by voters in 2006, which has already created 2,000 new jobs and promises to engender thousands...
Plus, these clunky reggaeton-rockin' menaces don't fit the sleek, cosmopolitan image of today's Panama City, which now has First World aspirations. After several years of unparalleled economic growth and construction, it wants a modern transportation system to fit its sophisticated and worldly ambitions. But getting rid of the second-hand busses has become one of the trickiest parts of Panama City's extreme makeover - and now a central issue in the May 3 presidential elections. "All modern cities have a metro system," said presidential frontrunner Ricardo Martinelli, during a recent speech to the city's top business...
...devils, despite their terrors, have sentimental value to the locals. "Look at the city, it looks like Miami," says bus user Agustin Romero, 26, as he leans against the window and points up at the shimmering glass towers of downtown Panama. "But you don't see these buses in Miami." And getting rid of the demon buses has become an infernal task for the government. The current administration's plan to indemnify bus owners $25,000 each to remove their buses from the road and replace them with modern new buses got tangled up in conflicts of interests that made...
...devils continue to rumble down the streets of Panama, colorfully resisting the calls for modernization. Who knows? The way things are going in the rest of the "first world," it might not be too long before second-hand school buses start looking more like the future of modern transportation, rather than its past...