Ruben Blades’ Panamanian Pipe Dream : The Singer-Actor Finds the Spotlight Is Hotter When You’re Running for President

Ruben Blades--salsa star, Hollywood actor and Panamanian presidential candidate--is walking along the cracked red-brick streets of San Felipe, the ramshackle barrio in Panama City’s old quarter where he grew up. “Hey, Ruben!” residents call out from their stoops and cluttered balconies. “Va pa’lante?” they ask, an inquiry about the state of Blades’ campaign. Is it going well? “We’re behind, but don’t give up,” he tells them.

Blades pauses to take a seat on a green wooden bench under the cypress trees of Plaza Herrera, in the heart of San Felipe. Old women stop to chat, remembering Blades as a child, discussing the neighbors who have come and gone, lamenting the decline of the community. “He always loved music as a boy,” says 81-year-old Juana Avila, wearing a brown floral dress and melon-colored tennis shoes. “I always said he was going to be a singer.”

Blades, an icon in the music world who combines brains, street smarts and sex appeal to chronicle the human condition, is widely credited with taking salsa into the American mainstream. He crossed into movies in 1985’s “Crossover Dreams” and has appeared with some of Hollywood’s biggest names. His political dreams have long been known to those close to him, and now, despite formidable odds, he is acting on them.

Blades has come home to Panama, a home he has not lived in for nearly 20 years. He has put his artistic career on pause in the pursuit of what skeptics would call a pipe dream. He is not just any refugee returning to a onetime war zone in the tropics: Blades wants to be president.

He has moved into a renovated, early 20th-Century apartment overlooking the Bay of Panama in a part of town that is slowly gentrifying--returning, he says, to the closest thing to his roots. He still clicks with the people in the old neighborhood, for whom Blades’ pop status has made him a sort of hero. But can Blades parlay a fame and fortune earned primarily in the United States into a victory in the most important election in Panamanian history?

“Everywhere, you see one thing in common with all the people you talk to,” he says after our stroll. “Their need to talk about problems and the need for change. I am not here to tell anyone how they should be, but I do have an obligation to myself to be of consequence. I know the streets well, and it worries me a lot what I see because I do not see hope in certain faces. It doesn’t depress me. It inspires me.”

As he reconnects to his past, Blades is hoping to change, radically, Panama’s future. His candidacy is riding largely on his promises to break the country’s seemingly endless cycle of dictators and toadies. Most of his opponents represent, one way or another, the past. One leading candidate is a product of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega’s political machine; another is a throwback to the pro-American oligarchs who periodically run the country.

When it was first rumored last year that Blades would enter the presidential race, he rocketed to a huge lead in public opinion surveys. No other candidate even seemed to register. But as the May 8 elections approach, Blades has fallen dramatically in the polls, sinking as low as third place though he recently rebounded to second. The local press either ignores or attacks him and he’s had a hard time convincing many Panamanians that he is serious. He has been accused of being arrogant and aloof and many of his supporters are abandoning him.

Blades knows he is getting criticized, yet he is determined to run the campaign as he sees fit. He says he will do politics in a new and different way, even if it means losing the election.

PANAMA IS SUCH AN ECCENTRIC AND OUTLANDISH PLACE THAT A SALSERO president is not totally out of the question. This is the country where--almost 4 1/2 short years ago--U.S. troops invaded to overthrow a military dictator who had been on the CIA payroll for years. Revolution then was being waged by people in BMWs, the ringleaders of subversion were Chamber of Commerce businessmen and one of the most galvanizing atrocities committed by the dictator’s goons was burning a Jaguar dealership.

This is a country where governments can be involved in scandals from drug trafficking to gun-running, and no one seems to bat an eye. Where the 54-year-old president marries a student, barely half his age and a fraction of his weight, who then runs for mayor with an opposition party. It is a haven for money launderers, fugitives and deposed Central American leaders, who, as in the case of ousted Guatemalan autocrat Jorge Serrano, live in opulent homes and do lunch at the elite Union Club.

This is a country where part of national territory--the Canal Zone--was actually foreign territory, a U.S.-controlled swath that Panamanian citizens could not enter without permission. U.S. dollars serve as the national currency, even though Panamanians pretend they have their own bills, called balboas.

And right now, this is a country that is seething.

Noriega’s fall signaled the end of two decades of military dictatorship and raised hopes of democracy. But President Guillermo Endara--who won the 1989 elections that Noriega annulled and was later put in office during a ceremony at a U.S. military base--never seemed to get the hang of it. For many, his attempt at democracy bore too many of the same traits as the dictatorships--corruption, nepotism and injustice. And his free-market policies seemed to deepen poverty for those on the bottom, while the rich just got richer. One in every five Panamanians is unemployed and about one in four lives in poverty.

The groundswell of discontent seemed to invite an outsider candidacy in the presidential elections, which will be the first in decades to be free of military oversight and will largely determine whether democracy is going to take root in this country of 2.5 million.

“The system failed,” says Blades in a two-hour interview conducted principally in Spanish. “After the invasion, everyone was promised that things were going to be different, that (the government) was going to be serious, it was going to be efficient, there was not going to be corruption, that things would get fixed. Much was promised. Very little was accomplished.”

Blades is seated now on the white-on-white sofa in the living room of his second-floor apartment. A breeze coaxed from the fans whirling on cathedral ceilings rustles through the potted palms. The apartment, built with the colonial-era foundations and walls that are typical in Panama’s Casco Viejo, or old quarter, is decorated in a mix of antiques and modern bleached wood. Golden and fuchsia bougainvillea drape from the wrought-iron balcony. The 45-year-old entertainer no longer sports the mustache he wore in “The Milagro Beanfield War” and his hair is thinning. On this Saturday morning, he is dressed in spotless white sneakers, jeans and a teal polo shirt that sets off his hazel eyes.

“This is the period when we most need a response that is different from the traditional,” Blades says. “And it is precisely the most difficult moment to present a response that is different because the people no longer believe in political answers. The people feel very betrayed--disappointed, yes, but more than that, betrayed. (Our movement) is an anti-party. More than a simple change of party, we are trying to present a change in attitude, in political behavior.”

POLITICS HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN UNDERCURRENT IN BLADES’ LIFE AND work. His family abandoned Panama in 1973 after Noriega accused Blades’ father, a secret policeman at the time, of working for the CIA. (His father said the charge was false, and, of course, it was Noriega who worked for the CIA.) Ruben Sr., with his Cuban-American wife (also a singer and composer) and Ruben’s four siblings moved to Miami, and Ruben followed the next year. He later moved to the Northeast, where his music career blossomed and he earned a degree in international law at Harvard University.

Blades achieved megafame in New York--first with bandleader Willie Colon and then with his own group, Seis del Solar--as an innovative artist and two-time Grammy winner who elevated salsa from mere dance music to the realm of social protest. His music is quintessential salsa--congas, maracas and horns--but under the driving rhythm are lyrics like these from “Motherland” on Blades’ 1988 “Antecedente” album, which he dedicated to Panama:

*

Some time ago a child asked me to explain the word motherland, what did it mean? . . . It’s in the walls of our barrio, and in its brown hope; it’s what those who leave take in their souls; it’s in our martyrs’ voices when they defended our flag . . .

*

In 1986, he moved to California to build his film career. He appeared in “The Two Jakes” with Jack Nicholson, a dozen or so other Hollywood productions and is in the upcoming “Color of Night” with Bruce Willis.

Blades, whose surname comes from his father’s West Indies ancestors and is pronounced like razor blades, says he is not concerned about suspending his artistic career, although he winces at having to turn down a film offer to portray slain Brazilian environmentalist Chico Mendes. Agent Nick Stevens of United Talent Agency says he is confident his client can resume a film career at any time. “He’s timeless,” Stevens says from Los Angeles. “His career is not one of momentum. He’s always gone off to do other things. I’ve always known that Ruben was interested in helping his homeland and his people above and beyond anything he was doing in the entertainment business. I always thought (the candidacy) was inevitable on some level.”

The candidate says he always planned to enter public service. As a student at Panama’s National University some 25 years ago, Blades and his friends talked politics and plotted their grand schemes for changing their country, the singer recalls. Many of those friends have joined him in the presidential campaign. For Blades and the others, the 1964 anti-American demonstrations in which U.S. troops killed 21 Panamanian students had a lasting impact; Blades’ platform calls for a gradual withdrawal of American troops by the year 2000--as scheduled in the 1977 canal treaties--despite substantial public sentiment in favor of retaining U.S. military bases.

The first formal step in his political odyssey was to create a party in late 1991. Named Papa Egoro, which means Mother Earth in the indigenous Embera language of Panama’s Choco Indians, the party brought together a diverse group of people. Its ideology could not be easily labeled: Infused with an ecological motif, the party’s platform advocates liberal social programs and better distribution of wealth, but also encourages business and private investment.

After its flashy start, however, his presidential bid is troubled. Blades has been criticized for an air of aloofness, not contributing his own money to the underfinanced effort and for conducting a campaign that has been, at times, strangely quiet. The low profile, he says, is part of a carefully considered strategy.

“Our silence is the silence of he who is studying and writing, he who is preparing to offer a proposal,” Blades says. “What has always gone on here is superficial politicking. People who have never entered a certain neighborhood are suddenly there, with a knot of people, with flags and giving away things.

“For me, the most important thing is to have the plan ready. You win, and what do you do afterward? Improvise? Not me. I do not want to win that way. The situation is too urgent and when the time comes that people want you to solve their problems, charisma won’t work.”

As the election approaches, Blades has started traveling the country and making more public appearances. He performed well in Panama’s first-ever televised presidential debate last month. He still fluctuates between second and third place, however, having trailed the front-runner by as many as 25 points. The question remains whether he can make up the lost ground.

AIDES IN THE CAMPAIGN CLOSE TO BLADES SPEAK OF HIS “UNIQUE style,” his determination to shun everything conventional in politics. They also speak of a stubborn streak. He rejects their advice to get out more, to capitalize on his best assets--the admiration and goodwill many people feel toward him.

Many Panamanians have become disenchanted with Blades. Back at the Plaza Herrera in San Felipe, Eddy Pelletier, a pianist on the birthdays-and-private-parties circuit, sidles up and takes a seat by the candidate. He wants to vote for Blades, he says, but the campaign has been something of a mystery to him.

“We want to help but we don’t know how,” Pelletier tells Blades. “We’re lost. We are people who want change but we feel like we’re not being taken into account. I listen to all the news on TV and radio, and I haven’t heard a thing (about the Blades campaign). And there are a bunch of people like me.”

But there are moments when the celebrity entertainer and the candidate blend. Blades has recorded the Papa Egoro campaign theme song, a classic salsa arrangement that tells people “the change is coming.” The tune is getting air time on Panamanian radio stations.

Ending one lull in his public appearances, Blades drops in on a post-Carnival salsa festival to greet his old buddies from Puerto Rico’s Gran Combo orchestra. Sponsored by the Panama Kiwanis Club, the festivities open with elaborate, sparkling floats that glide down oceanfront Balboa Avenue, carrying beauty queens decked out in mammoth headdresses of multicolored feathers. The music follows and Blades arrives, pushing his way through a crowd clearly delighted to see him.

Bats are dive-bombing under a full moon as he strides onto the bandstand to greet the musicians, famous in this part of the world for their classic, “Brujeria” (“Witchcraft”). The men embrace. The crowd roars. “Amame toda la vida,” Blades sings, dancing a few steps in more-or-less unison with the graying salsa stars, “Love me for a lifetime.”

Backstage, one person after another puts an arm around Blades, takes him aside, slaps his back or confides a memory. Many relay their concern that he is behind in the polls. “Don’t worry,” he tells them. “Little by little.”

A television personality in a purple miniskirt comes up to shake his hand. “You have my vote,” she whispers in his ear.

He is called back for an encore with the band and again the crowd is ecstatic, hooting and cheering. No political speeches are given, no mention of the election.

The concert is televised, however, so Blades has just gotten some free publicity. But is it the image he wants to convey? Already, cartoons in the unfriendly local press portray him as a pair of maracas.

IF BLADES IS A STAR ATTRACTION in this race, there are plenty of sideshows that are threatening to upstage him.

First, there is The Bull.

Silver-haired and thick-necked, Ernesto Perez Balladares has marched to the head of the polls as the candidate for the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the onetime political arm of Gen. Noriega. His towering bulk earned him the universally used nickname “El Toro.”

The thousands of Panamanians who are cheering Perez Balladares are not asking for Noriega to return. They are angry at the Endara government, which they see as elitist and racist. They have been hurt by rising unemployment, cuts in public-sector benefits and declining buying power.

The Democratic Revolutionary Party, declared dead when Noriega was captured after the 1989 invasion and jailed in Miami on drug charges, has expertly managed to exploit the discontent. Its association with Noriega and the military, however, frightens some people, and opponents are hoping to use that against Perez Balladares, a tireless campaigner and multimillionaire businessman and coffee exporter.

Perez Balladares is trying to distance the party from Noriega and emphasize its historical ties to Gen. Omar Torrijos, the larger-than-life strongman who overthrew an elected president in 1968 and governed until his 1981 death in a still-mysterious airplane crash.

Despite his iron-fist rule, Torrijos was admired by many Panamanians because of his attention to the poor. This is evident in the lower-middle-class neighborhood of Juan Diaz, on the outskirts of Panama City, where a rally for Perez Balladares is getting under way at dusk. Hundreds of people filling the roughly paved streets to greet El Toro remember that Torrijos built the neighborhood, helped them own homes and gave them electricity. “PRD, toda la vida!” shouts Vilma de Cedas, a 59-year-old mother of seven who is dressed in party colors of red, white and blue. A band of trumpets and drums marches along, playing festive Carnival songs as the crowd lets loose.

While the elections mark the resurrection of Noriega’s old party, they also have ushered in the demise of the ruling center-right coalition installed after the U.S. invasion. Endara is ineligible for another term, leaving coalition members to fight bitterly over who should be its candidate, until finally the alliance split. The parties are running separate candidates, including the remarried widow of Arnulfo Arias, a legendary civilian politician who was thrice elected president in the 1940s and ‘60s and was thrice overthrown by the army, and Ruben Dario Carles, the 73-year-old former comptroller known for his cantankerous personality and tightfisted management.

Carles also served in government in the 1950s and represents those Panamanians known as rabiblancos, a pejorative term for the white aristocracy that periodically--and currently--rules over the mostly dark-skinned populace.

With his trademark bow tie, Carles (said to be a favorite of the U.S. Embassy because of his eagerness to pay the foreign debt) is showing considerable strength in polls, at times surpassing Blades. Both are still far behind Perez Balladares, however.

The ghosts that haunt Perez Balladares and Carles can work to Blades’ advantage because he does not bring similar baggage to the race. But Blades is dogged by criticism about his long absence from the country. He has a credibility problem among those Panamanians who ask where he was when they were here suffering. How can he understand Panama’s problems?

Blades, who says he visited Panama through all the years he lived in the States, maintains it is not necessary for him to be here constantly to know what’s going on. That is what Papa Egoro is for.

“It is true that I got off a plane from California,” he says. “The good news is that the party did not get off with me. The party is from here in Panama. It was made here in Panama, formed by Panamanians, its proposals are Panamanian.”

Besides, he adds, “I don’t think those who have been here (all along) have done such a good job.”

His credibility problem is worsened by the fact that his wife, California native Lisa Blades, has not moved to Panama from their home in Santa Monica. Some Panamanians wonder how serious Blades can be if his wife lives in another country. The 31-year-old actress has visited Panama to help her husband campaign. But in a telephone interview from Santa Monica, she is noncommittal about making a permanent break from California.

Credibility is also an issue, Blades acknowledges, with professionals, some intellectuals and other Panamanians who have wanted to dismiss him as nothing more than a singer. “We called people from the professional ranks (to join the party), but they didn’t come,” Blades says. “They didn’t come because they weren’t sure.”

But Blades also says that the same politicians who attack him as unfit to be president offered him a place on their tickets. A spokesman for the PRD confirms that the party had proposed a possible alliance, but nothing came of it.

“The same people who were calling us folkloric, bohemians, leftists, improvisers, madmen, musicians, lined up, lined up, to say, ‘Well, for the good of the country, we ought to consider forming alliances,’ ” Blades says, bitterness in his voice.

THIS POLITICS BUSINESS HAS turned out to be much more difficult, much more challenging than Blades expected. Harder than touring, he says.

The Papa Egoro movement has been plagued by desertions of disgruntled members who say that Blades and other senior leaders of the party are acting like a private club--a tightknit cabal of intellectuals who control all decisions and where being a Friend of Ruben is what counts most.

“Papa Egoro is not a political party,” says Milagros Yanis, a former party official who resigned in 1992. “It is a grouping of people where one single person decides everything that is said or done. If Ruben leaves, Papa Egoro does not exist.”

Blades says most of the complaints come from people who did not get the kind of access and power they wanted. Even in a democracy, he says, someone has to make ultimate decisions. The most serious rifts, he says, spring from the diversity of the people brought together in Papa Egoro.

“I am friends with the guy who lives in Curundu and the guy who lives in Paitilla,” Blades says, referring to one of Panama City’s poorest slums and one of its most elegant residential areas. “With one, I went to school; the other I knew later. So when the guy from Curundu and the guy from Paitilla meet in a room, we are not only deciding a political agenda but also resolving suspicions that exist among different economic groups in Panama--racism, sexism, everything. This is a cultural change, and that is not easy.”

Blades has had a rocky relationship with Panamanian newspapers and television stations, which are largely controlled by traditional political parties or business interests, the Establishment whose nose Blades so enjoys tweaking.

Carlos Mendoza would be considered part of that Establishment. He is the publisher of the Panama America newspaper and sits on the board overseeing the return of canal lands to Panama. Mendoza does not support Blades, but he thinks he could be more successful if he could overcome his reticence. “There is something naively messianic about Ruben,” Mendoza says. “If he could be himself, let his true personality out, he would be a much better candidate. He could sell his personality and people would love it.”

Blades is sensitive to the attacks, which range from accusations that he is stingy for not putting his own money into the campaign (“The value of my ‘fortune’ has been very exaggerated. People think that because I made a movie with Jack Nicholson, I was paid the same as Jack”) to the fact that his wife is a blue-eyed, blond American.

Blades came under more criticism for interrupting the campaign to rush back to Santa Monica after the January earthquake, which damaged his house. An Op-Ed piece in one newspaper, lamenting the death of Panama’s political class, referred to Blades as a “tourist in Creole politics.”

“If what we are doing is madness, then it is a noble madness,” he says. “We must do this independent of whether we win or not. We lose if we do not try. The artist does not see impossibles.”

Most of the time, Blades speaks in an energetic, animated flurry, where he might take on the speaking parts of several characters in a story he is telling, or hunch over to imitate a jockey riding in the race of his life.

But then, as we talk about the past, he becomes quiet. When he returned to Panama last year, he recalls seeing a hardness and desperation in the eyes of many people, an emptiness that reminds him of a young boy he once met on Panama’s Coiba penal island, a hellacious prison he visited in 1973 as part of a university thesis. He is moved by the recollection. He fights tears.

“You cannot maintain yourself at the margins of this,” he says. “The moment comes when you have to reach a decision. You are living better than the people you wrote (songs) about. And there is something in that which is not good.

“The time comes you have to put yourself in the line of fire, you have to earn the right. You’re sitting up in your pretty house, playing the guitar and singing about the people below. Well, go down below where they are. That’s what we are doing. For me, it is a moral question, a question of integrity.”