PRD to the rest of the World: “Eat me, queer!”

Colon’s PRD Mayor Alex Lee responds to questions about giving himself a large raise, accompanied by PRD legislator Jairo “Bolota” Salazar. The raise makes the mayor’s salary and perks $14,000 per month now — more than the president of Panama makes. The homophobic chant comes on the heels of years of foreigner-baiting, legislative proposals to drive foreign music off of Panamanian radio and create a registry of women who have miscarriages, use of the international religious far right’s signature jargon, and a media campaign by the ruling party’s xenophobe-in-chief that uses fake persona trolls from abroad — and Russia’s RT video channel — to spread hate messages around the world in the name of Panama.

Who will Nito blame when the tourists stop coming to Panama because of stuff like this?

by Eric Jackson

‘Ridiculous,’ some will say. ‘The Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) is a member of the Socialist International. They’re center-left, not far right.’

Yeah, and Benito Mussolini began his rise to power as the editor of a Socialist newspaper, too.

Panamanian President Laurentino “Nito” Cortizo did smash the challenge of legislator Zulay Rodríguez in the PRD presidential primary. But Zulay, head of the PRD Women’s Federation and Vice President of the National Assembly, does pretty much set the agenda for the party and its allies in the legislature and the tone of its public pronouncements. Cortizo has not seen fit to differ with her or them.

The world situation is shifting. It might not be reasonable to rule out Nito Cortizo walking in the footsteps of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. Listen to the PRD mayor of the city at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, and hear the silence of the president of his own party.

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