Former Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino was released yesterday after six-months of preventive detention. Greated by his family, his legal team as well as a conspicuous number of of Cambio Democratico (CD) party supporters, Mr. Mulino took the opportunity to accuse directly President Juan Carlos Varela of political persecution, stating that the President’s ineptitude and hypocrisy had damaged the whole country. He went on to add that one thing that the current government can do to make up for all the harm caused and help the country move forward, it is to put an end to all political persecution.
“I want to say this to my former friend Juan Carlos Varela: stop the persecution, stop it because it is doing great harm to you and to your government; put an end to the ineptitude and, above all, to the hypocrisy”, the former minister stated, adding that he didn’t “harbor hard feelings for the harm caused during his detention”. Mr Mulino went on to declare that hoped President Varela would stop being the bogeyman of his political opponents and instead “get on with his job, change course and be the president that he promised he would be during his election campaign”, warning that “the government has to work for the country to be at peace with itself, for all Panamanians to make peace: that’s the most important thing of all”. The former minister condemned President Varela for raising false expectations during his election campaign: “You sold yourself as the Messiah, the Chosen One, the great Puritan: it was all a big lie, you and your government are all a big lie”, he charged. Claiming that he his detention was baseless and unjustified, he declared that he had “no desire for vengeance” and didn’t “wish this on any of those that had unfairly sent him to prison”. Thanking the cheering crowds for all their friendship and support, and addressing the CD party members, he went on to predict that the party would be “back in power in 2019, because the country is totally fed up with all the ineptitude and hypocrisy on the part of those in power today”.Mr. Mulino recognized the formative time he has had while being detained: “I have learnt the importance of leaving all the hatred and resentment that I felt back then, for being unfairly detained, of leaving it all behind. I wanto to forget all the resentment I felt then; I want to forget those that betrayed me, and I want my friends to know that I am there for them. It would be pointless to regain freedom while feeling guilty: I want you all to know that I feel proud of the time I spent in that prison, because it has dignified me”.
In a message that carried obvious clues of his ambitions for the 2019 presidential contest, Mr Mulino addressed the party claiming that he accepted the turn that events had taken in his life and that he would not “pass up on the challenge and let down the many people that shared in [his] struggle all this time”. He went on to advocate unity for the party in the 2017 internal election of a presidential candidate: “I have full respect for all my fellow party members: the party will vote openly and faily and choose its candidate”. “We will all work together respectfully for the good of the country, for a new constitutional chart that can serve this country for the next 50 years; we will work so that a new generation can come to power, we will work for a country where no one can be sent to jail on preventive detention, as has happened to me, and as is still happening to others right as we speak”, he affirmed, in a clear reference to former ministers Guillermo Ferrufino and Oscar Osorio, both currently in detention. “I wish no one, absolutely no one, should suffer what my family and I had to go through these past months”, he concluded.
