Impeachment

The President of Panama was impeached last week. The charge: that he violated a constitutional provision that prohibits the President from giving "direct or indirect official aid to a candidate." President Marco Aurelio Robles, 62, who cannot succeed himself by law and thus is not running in the May 12 presidential elections, was charged with aiding Finance Minister David Samudio, 57. Robles was accused of allowing his press office to release an official announcement of support, attending a fund-raising banquet for Samudio and writing a letter recommending Samudio's presidential candidacy to his Liberal Party directorate. Since the coalition under which he has ruled for four years had fragmented in preparation for the elections, Robles was able to muster only 12 votes in the 42-seat National Assembly.

Chief organizer of the impeachment was the favored candidate in the May elections, ex-President Arnulfo Arias, 66, who was tossed out of office in 1951 for trying to impose a tough, authoritarian rule. Robles was a member of the legislative commission that impeached Arias, and the two have been enemies since. Robles, who angrily termed last week's impeachment "null and void," faces a formal trial before the National Assembly on March 24; if the votes against him hold up, he will then be removed from office. That is, unless the country's 4,000-man national guard intervenes.

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