One Vote Can't Make a Difference


One Vote Can't Make a Difference

(4 votes)

Written by Matt Landau

Saturday, October 28 2006

If you are up to date on your Panama current events, you know that we recently had a nation-wide vote to expand our Canal. But from the voter turn out (for an issue of such national pride and potential reward) it appears that most of Panama's population spent their Sunday instead searching for illegal booze. CNN probably captured a photo or two of Panamanians and their sisters lined up in ecstatic lines to cast their “Yes” vote, but what they missed were the millions of Panamanians, trying to fight the weekend's ‘no drinking' mandate, huddled in circles concocting moonshine in their bathtubs. “Who needs a Canal” they'd say “when you've got a fresh hootch of firewater brewing?”

I decided to conduct a small poll among my Panamanian friends, exploring whether or not they actually had valid takes on the subject: whether or not they were really on top of their canal expansion game. I wasn't going to throw any curveballs, asking how deep the canal was at the start of Gatun Lake. I just wanted an idea.

My buddy Antonio was coming in from downtown carrying a box of pizza. On the outside of the box read a line which struck my funny bone: Delicious Piping Hot Pizza. I found this amusing because it was almost like the box was trying to sell me the pizza, trying to convince me that I wanted a slice. That it was really delicious. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, as usually the only people reading it would have already committed to eating it. Nonetheless, I asked Antonio for his take on the Canal. (Canal is one of those words like God, that you have to capitalize, right?)

Antonio said he was “very much for the Canal expansion”, but when I prodded further, asking just how he thought the government was going to handle all the cash and where all the new skilled workers were going to come from, Antonio shrugged and told me he couldn't talk right now. He had a pizza to eat. A delicious piping hot pizza.

Antonio represents a handful of people I know, who express this triumphant “yes” or “no” followed by some sort of excuse to change the subject—due to a lack of answers. One woman I know took this nonchalance a step further. “One vote can't make a difference” she told me. “I'm going to the beach for the weekend.”

While Antonio was eating pizza, Maria was busy making sandcastles at the beach and I was creating cut-out figurines of celebrities I'd like to wound, the Panama Canal expansion vote took place: a vote characterized by an all-time low voter turnout and a resounding victory for the “Yes” team.

Everyone knows Panama is blowing up right now in thermonuclear proportions. The amount of money and visitors that will be injected into this country in the following years are going to be stupefyingly large. Panamanians go banzai for the word tourism; their hopes and dreams represented by small magnets, puffy airbrushed t-shirts and cheesy postcards with sayings like “Panama is for lovers”. But when faced with the question of just how the government and the country are going to handle this giant influx, people tend to get tongue tied. Sure I have intense friends who will talk my ear off as to why the Canal expansion is good or bad. But in my opinion, the majority of the Panamanian public is unsure, undecided and much like myself, uninformed.

I won't get into the details of the Canal expansion ‘cause they're pretty boring, but I'd like to point out some questions that someone should answer before this thing gets underway. The important part is, the Canal will be able to do more business, and with more business means more employees. Where is the Canal Authority going to find all these new workers? Less importantly, but still critical; where are they going to find all these new business cards? If they plan on finding workers in the interior of the country, then where do they find workers for the tourism industry? What about the real estate side of things; who's going to build all these tall buildings with tough names like Ice Tower and Thunder Point? I know I am a pretty good architect but I certainly can't do it all of those buildings on my own. And getting back to the business cards: I don't think I've ever had more than four orders in a month. I don't know if I could handle that many inquiries.

Perhaps the more important issue, assuming they figure out a way around employment and immigration issues, is how all this money is going to be handled. The government doesn't have nearly enough armored vehicles or vaults to transport or store all this new cash and chances are, in the thick of things, lots of it is going to get lost—probably in pockets. I know I could make money disappear pretty fast, so we have to ask ourselves, is this a way to eradicate the rickety morals of Panama's elite? Or is this a way to promote them?

Now I'm just a gringo, and in truth, it's not my place to be complaining about a government that's not my own. I can do that enough at home. But all I'm sayin is, Panamanians may not know what they're in for. Back when I was part of the Russian Revolution, we didn't know what was coming either. But boy, did we see fireworks. Good luck Panama. I will be here with you every step of the way. That is, unless I'm out trying to find a new business card maker.

Panama Culture