"[3] As a National Assembly member in 1994, she opposed outgoing President Guillermo Endara's granting of temporary asylum to 10,000 Haitian boat people,[4] but supported his initiative to abolish the armed forces.

[8] In December 2000, human remains were discovered at a Panamanian National Guard base, incorrectly believed to be those of Jesús Héctor Gallego Herrera, a priest murdered during the Omar Torrijos dictatorship.

The commission ultimately reported on 110 of the 148 cases it examined, concluding that the Noriega government had engaged in "torture [and] cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment", and recommending further exhumation and investigation.

[11] The following year, National Assembly member Carlos Afu, who was being expelled from the PRD for his vote in support of Spadafora's nomination, accused the party of taking bribes en masse under Herrera's leadership from the San Lorenzo consortium, a government contractor.

[13] However, Herrera was badly damaged in the election by her "reputation as a henchwoman of General Manuel Noriega"[14] and by the perception that she was a "Chavista", a supporter of leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.