Roberto Eisenmann Story – Politics

In this installment of our interview with history-maker, Roberto Eisenmann, we will look at what life was like once he returned to Panama, his experiences with the new government, his own political aspirations and the many positions he has held throughout his career. We continue: If you ask Roberto Eisenmann if he, himself, had ever thought about running for office based on his popularity with La Prensa and his fight for the freedom of Panamanians, he says that he had thought about it a lot.

“During the battle against the dictatorship there were about ten or twelve people who stood out like sore thumbs, and I was one of them. So when democracy is suddenly upon us, obviously, everybody thinks about you as part of what should be a government.”

 “I analyzed it very profoundly and came to the conclusion that I don’t have what it takes to be a good politician. I’m not flexible enough. My parameters are just too inflexible to be a good politician.”

Mr. Eisenmann noted that at one time he was a member of a newly created political party and quickly became disenchanted. “We were discussing things, and I would say, ‘That’s not good for the country.’”  “They would say, ‘But it’s good for the party.’  And I couldn’t put a party flag above the flag of the country.”

During the Moscoso presidency, Eisenmann was in a “kitchen cabinet.” This was not a true political position as we know it, but rather he took on the role of an adviser. Moscoso had asked him to put together her social program based on his ability to bring together a broad constituency for the project. He was convinced and spent the next six months working with 500 people to build a new social program.

By the time the program was ready, Moscoso was president. She asked Mr. Eisenmann to present the proposed social program at a cabinet meeting. After the meeting, she told him to name the position in her government that he wanted. What he wanted was to continue as he had been, an adviser on her “kitchen cabinet” with no personal agenda but access to the president, and he insisted on others being on the same cabinet with him.

He served in this role for 18 months but became disillusioned with corruption in the new government and quit. This experience convinced him that his decision not to run for political office was correct.

Eisenman has been offered several high profile positions over the years. The new government after Noreiga asked him to be the ambassador to Washington, but after being in exile for seven years, he wanted to go home. Then there was also the offer of the top administration job for the Canal; he turned this one down as well.  “The politicians resent this,” says Mr. Eisenmann. “[The politicians] say you have no right to criticize us if you don’t accept [this job].” To this Mr. Eisenmann replied, “There are two ways of participating in politics. One is a partisan way, and the other one is civil society. I prefer civil society. I will be around a lot longer than your cabinet ministers. You don’t remember who the cabinet ministers were five years ago.”

A position that Mr. Eisenmann did accept was that of the president of Transparency International. He held this position since its inception up until a few months ago when he chose to resign so that he could take life a little slower.

Transparency International, which is headquartered in Berlin, was founded by a former World Bank official who recognized that the corruption in third world countries was motivated by the first world countries. Mr. Eisenmann goes on to explain that the problem lies in first world countries’ corporations and governments paying under the table to get contracts. “In general,” he says, “organizations such as the World Bank “turn a blind eye to this” so as not to disturb their own structure.  The World Bank official was motivated by this dynamic and formed Transparency International which became worldwide very quickly.”

Transparency International was set up to have national chapters with local people running them whom the organization could trust to carry out the work. When the chairman of Transparency International came to Panama, he talked to Mr. Eisenmann who agreed to create the Panama national chapter.

“Our chapter in Panama has been very active,” says Mr. Eisenmann. “Several of the things that we have done here have been imitated in other countries.”

When asked how his involvement in Transparency affected Panama, he replies, “We have raised the level of consciousness about the ills of corruption.” He pauses, “That sounds sort of strange. I mean people are aware, especially poor people.  Poor people admired [this]. These guys who were totally corrupt would build their mansions in full view and a poor person would pass by and say, ‘Look what he got. He knew how to do it.’” He goes on to further explain, “It was sort of an aspiration. There was no sense of ‘that’s costing me; what he’s stealing is costing me.’”

“I think that Transparency has gone a long way in changing that. People now resent corruption and are more inclined to say, “You have taken the money out of my pocket.”

“In regard to consciousness, we have done a lot. Also, we were very instrumental in getting our freedom of information law passed like in the States. We didn’t have that. Also, we were influential in keeping corruption out of the privatization programs two decades ago.” The Transparency chapter was able to accomplish these goals by putting an article in La Prensa every day.

After running a newspaper for so many years, it was only natural for Mr. Eisenmann to become further involved in journalism, and he did so when he took on the role of president of the International Center for Journalism. Eisenmann states that part of the problem in his industry is, “Journalists and owners of journalism outlets never talk to each other, and academics never talk to the other two.”

“In that program we created a board where there were academics, journalists, and owners at the same table. And that made a hell of a difference with anything we were discussing.”

“We dedicated our efforts to further educating practicing journalists. They come out of the university, they think they know it all, and they have really no experience. We found that we needed to give them further education in order to make them good journalists, especially investigative journalists, which is what every journalist should be. It is a very successful program, and it is in a lot of other countries. It is an international group. We got a lot of help from professors at Florida International University, and we got some money from USAID (US Agency for International Development) to promote it.”

End of second installment