David Murcia Gave $6 Million Dollars to Balbina and Bobby
(panama-guide.com) David Murcia Guzmán certainly did not keep his mouth shut. From the jail where he is being held in Picota, Colombia, he told La Prensa today that he gave $6 million dollars to help finance the political campaigns of the Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD). He said he gave $3 million dollars to the campaign of Bobby Velasquez, who is running for the position of Mayor of Panama City for the PRD, and another $3 million dollars to support Balbina Herrera, who is running for the position of President of the Republic for the PRD.
"The idea was to select both candidates from the same party. The idea was to invest $20 million in the two of them, but we started with $6 million dollars," he said.
Murcia further detailed that the money was given in cash to the father of the PRD Mayoral candidate, Roberto Velázquez.
"I committed myself directly with the PRD; we decided upon a sum of investment and they, in exchange, would give me contracts, and I was going to handle the social part," he said.
Murcia, who founded DMG, said businessman Ernesto Chong introduced him to Roberto Velázquez, both the father and his son the candidate for the Mayor of Panama City.
He said the meeting took place in June 2008, in his apartment in the Miramar building, and that shortly thereafter he attended several additional meetings with both of them.
Murcia said that, besides the money, the decided that DMG was going to also collaborate with the production of t-shirts, hats, and other accessories for the campaign.
"We had to send an order to China for a whole bunch of containers full of t-shirts and hats and I think utensils for kids to use in school," he said. The complete interview with David Murcia will appear in the printed edition of La Prensa tomorrow.
Original Source: La Prensa
Editor's Comment: I would like to say officially, "holy shit!" Balbina is now done - game, set, and match. Unless Bobby Velasquez can come up with something to prove that David Murcia is lying (and, he's probably not), then he's probably done as well. That means the Mayorship for Panama City will now be up for grabs between Bosco and Migual Antonio Bernal, as unlikely as that sounded just a few hours ago. As they say, anything can happen in politics. This is going to be fun to watch... Hey, where's that video clip of Bablina Herrera declaring loudly "we don't accept money from money launderers or drug traffickers..." Yeah, right.
