Many Dominicans are celebrating the fact that the campaign has ended, which means a stop to the political propaganda that dominates TV, and the music and caravans in the streets. The Electoral Law bans political propaganda for the last 24 hours before the election. The idea is to give Dominicans time to reflect on who they are going to vote for tomorrow, Tuesday, 16 May, in the congressional and municipal election. By election standards, nevertheless, 2006 was a quieter campaign than Dominicans have been accustomed to, with a seemingly large share of the propaganda budgets going on TV and mega billboards posting the mug shots of the candidates, and the encouraging of voters to choose a vote for the political party, rather than based on the strength of a candidate.
Journalist Bienvenido Alvarez-Vega, in Hoy newspaper, today encourages Dominicans, to vote based on the track record and community service record of the candidates. This is particularly relevant because 128 of the congressional candidates seek to continue in Congress.
Election day in the DR is an non-working day, with most businesses closed until the afternoon with colmadones and gathering places are likely to be open again to cater for thousands who gather to talk politics and wait for the first vote count bulletins. Otherwise, family and friend reunions in people's homes are also among popular things to do tomorrow. Voting is very much a social event in the DR, with many choosing to vote because it is fun to stand in line and meet fellow station voters.
See http://www.conocer.com.do for information on candidates and http://www.jce.do
Most Congress members of are seeking re-election. This means that 114 members of the Chamber of Deputies are seeking to continue in their posts, while 14, including the president of the chamber, aspire to be part of the much smaller Senate, where only one person represents each of the 32 provinces and the National District. As analyzed by journalist Maria Isabel Soldevilla of Diario Libre, in the Senate, at least 26 of the senators also seek to be re-elected. The PLD ruling party seeks to increase its share in Congress, thus reducing the need to negotiate with opposition members to pass its bills. In the past two terms, Congress has been for the most part complacent with the Executive Branch, but news reports indicate that there is a higher lobby price to pay with the opposition in majority, as has been the case over the past two years.
In her analysis, Soldevilla explains that in 1998 and 2002 the PRD had a majority in Congress. The PLD, elected to the Presidency with a record majority vote that polls show President Fernandez still maintains, now seeks to revert the party composition of Congress and municipalities to its favor.
Interestingly, the analysis points out the indifference to the campaign in the capital city. She mentions that in 2002, there was a 60% abstention, and only 41% of those able to vote did so. Many Dominicans take advantage of the long weekend, with schools off, for vacationing at resorts around the country. In Santiago, only 47% voted in the 2002 mid-term election. This compares to 76% in the scantly populated province of Independencia, on the border with Haiti. Soldevilla explains that political parties concentrate much of their efforts in the nation's poorest provinces, where, according to her, politics become a source of jobs and social welfare industry more than marketing and political propaganda.
Overall, there are 178 chamber of deputies seats. This is broken down as follows:
National District (18), Province of Santo Domingo (36), San Pedro de Macoris (6), La Romana (4), La Altagracia (4), El Seibo (2), Samana (2), Monte Plata (4), Hato Mayor (2), Maria Trinidad Sanchez (3), Sanchez Ramirez (3), Duarte (6), Salcedo (2), Espaillat (5), Puerto Plata 6), Monsenor Nouel (3), Santiago (18), Valverde (3), Montecristi (2), Dajabon (2), Santiago Rodriguez (2), Elias Pina (2), San Juan (5), Independencia 2), Pedernales (2), Bahoruco (2) Barahona (4), Azua (4), La Vega (8), San Jose de Ocoa (2), Peravia (3), San Cristobal (11).
There are 178 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 33 Senate seats.
Diario Libre also explains that 17 of 32 senators are seeking re-election. These are Cesar Diaz Filpo (Azua), Melania Salvador (Bahoruco), Andres Bautista (Espaillat), Dagoberto Rodriguez (Independencia), Enrique Seijas (La Romana), Jesus Vasquez (Maria Trinidad Sanchez), Hernani Salazar (Duarte), Juan Roberto Rodriguez (El Seibo), Juan Morales (Hato Mayor), Bernardo Aleman (Monte Cristi), Angel Dinocrates Perez (Pedernales), Vicente Castillo (Peravia), Jose Hazim (San Pedro de Macoris), Tony del Villar (San Juan de la Maguana), Cesar Augusto Matias (Valverde), Pedro Alegria (San Jose de Ocoa) all on the Pink Alliance ticket (PRSC + PRD), and Ramiro Espino (Samana) running for the PRSD. Eight former senators are seeking to return to the Senate. These are Ginette Bournigal (Puerto Plata), Juan Rafael Peralta (Santiago Rodriguez), Milton Ray Guevara (Samana), Enrique Lopez (Monsenor Nouel), Amable Aristy Castro (La Altagracia), Cuqui Medrano (La Vega), Oscar Santiago Batista (Monsenor Nouel), and Wilton Guerrero (Peravia).
The Central Electoral Board (JCE) passed a resolution yesterday that will allow votes to be counted faster in tomorrow's Congressional and Municipal elections. The measure will accelerate the confirmation of the calculations and the publication of the results. All political parties were in agreement with the procedures. Time constraints were placed on the different "confirmation tables" for reporting the results to the local election boards. In places with more than 100 polling stations, 36 stations will be validated at one time and then the different political delegates will have just 30 minutes to dispute any of those results. In smaller districts, the delegates will have 15 minutes to dispute a result. JCE officially opened its press office at 11:30 this morning. The JCE also announced that no cell phones or electronic equipment of any type will be allowed inside polling stations.
The Dominican Council of Bishops called upon all Dominicans to vote in tomorrow's elections. The bishops have asked citizens to elect people with qualities that will guarantee the country's future and that of the Church. The Sunday message to the people said that anyone who does not vote is not doing their civic duty - unless they have a good reason such as illness. The bishops also called on the JCE to do its job in an impartial manner, with honesty, courage and firmness. Finally, the bishops asked the people to avoid conflicts and provocations that could cause the electoral process to lose its focus.
After several attempts to save the Civility Pact, signed just last Tuesday, the coordinator of the National Dialogue, Monsignor Agripino Nunez Collado, announced the end of the pact and the dissolution of the Electoral Assistance Commission. In a full-page announcement published in Diario Libre's Saturday edition, the commission said that they were sorry that the consensus that had led to the pact in the first place had been lost. They called the loss a "step backwards" for the democratic system and the Dominican nation as a whole. The commission said that they still held out hopes for common sense and a willingness to open a dialogue to prevail among the nation's political leaders. They called for civility and peace whether or not there was a pact. The commission also told the nation that pact or no pact, elected officials are obliged to draw up legislative and municipal agendas, by consensus, that include the most important issues facing the nation today.
PRSD leader Hatuey De Camps was rushed to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City where he underwent surgery to correct a severe diverticulitis condition. He was operated on by Dr. Richard Whelan, head of the Colo-rectal Surgery Department at Columbia-Presbyterian. Present at the surgery were Dr. Rafael Nazario Lora, the medical advisor to the PRSD party leader, and Dominique Bluhdorn, his wife. Diverticulitis is a particularly serious problem in the lower bowel, often causing major infections that can lead to death.
The Dominican Republic has embarked on the preparation of its first National Systematic Competitiveness Plan, which seeks to generate guidelines to help raise the DR's level to that of a world-class country in 15 to 20 years. Mexican competitiveness expert, Rene Villarreal said that the country is already a world-class player in cigar exports, and he envisages that more areas could be added. Villareal, who has been entrusted with drawing up the plan, says that it will be ready in eight months time and will set the strategies to increase the country's capacity to compete. The program is one of local empowerment, with the strength coming from clusters. It brings government and the private sector together, focuses on logistics, innovation, an institutional framework and the rule of the law. Locally, the counterpart for the program that will cover all economic areas - energy, agriculture, industry and manufacturing, and tourism - is the National Competitiveness Council (CNC). The CNC works through clusters that bring together all players in a community, and seeks to empower these with the strategy so that when the government changes, the local communities ensure that the program, that has been agreed upon by all, may continue. Villareal stresses that what is needed is a change in business, labor, and government culture. In President Fernandez's own words, he said that Dominicans have to understand that competition should not be between ourselves, but with the outside. "That is a fundamental aspect of the work philosophy among us Latin Americans, that needs to be changed for one of working as a team," he stressed.
He said that all groups need to be competitive in their area - business, sectors, government, country, teachers and unions - and that is why the plan is called "systematic." What is necessary is to integrate a chain of trust among all.
Furthermore, Andres Van Der Horst of the National Competitiveness Council explained that Dominicans have to come together within their business associations to make statements that may be beneficial to the community. He said a paradigm change is necessary both in the public and private sector. "The private sector has to understand that the way to solve competitiveness problems is not by having breakfast with the minister. That is not sustainable."
As reported in Hoy, Villareal explained the plan will also propose a change in the education system to a focus on learning how to learn and be creative. He says the country has the natural resources and entrepreneurial and business capacity. He said that there is still time to make changes that will benefit the population. He commented that in his native Mexico, changes were not made on time, and now the poor resent the rich, and are aggressive and not the "contented poor" of the 1970s. He says that in the DR the poor do not have that resentment, or hate that leads them to think, "Why don't I have what you have." He said that changes needed to be made before the country gets to the point where Mexico is where the poor were marginalized for too many years, and today the population must suffer the consequences in the shape of violent crime and all its effects.
Villareal is making a diagnosis of the weaknesses and strengths of the country as far as competitiveness is concerned.
But he stresses that a game plan and team strategy, together with passion and commitment is needed to move ahead. "But also, if we do not believe we can become champions, we wont make it. Then we have to believe we can be world-class," he says.
The program began on 29 March with a meeting between the President and his cabinet.
Dominican Vice-President Rafael Alburquerque has addressed the European-Latin America Summit in Vienna, Austria. He focused on the fact that developing countries, with poor economies, such as those in Latin America and the Caribbean, cannot integrate with developed countries under equal terms. Alburquerque is heading the Dominican delegation to the summit, and in his speech he emphasized the differences in every field that separate developing nations, like the DR, from the industrialized nations. The speech was entitled "The fight against poverty, inequality and cohesion: The Dominican Republic experience." The VP said that if these huge differences were not taken into consideration, inequality and social vulnerability would only increase. He suggested that the preferential treatments outlined in the Cotonou Accords should be substituted for others that are more in line with the rules of World Trade Organization (WTO).
Construction has begun on the second tunnel for the Santo Domingo Metro System (SDMS), according to a press release signed by Diandino Pena, the head of OPRET, the office responsible for the reorganization of traffic in Santo Domingo. The new tunnel will be 600 meters long and will link the intersection between Maximo Gomez and 27 de Febrero with the National Theatre. OPRET director of operations, Rafael Serrano, said that there would not be total disruption to traffic along the Maximo Gomez Avenue. Progress on several of the stations is advancing, the drainage and sewer systems are well underway, and the avenue alongside the river has installed a bridge over gully known as "Canada del Diablo". According to one of the engineers consulted, work is going on for 18-20 hours per day.
Standard and Poor's have maintained their current credit ratings for the Dominican Republic at B, according to the S&P representative for the DR. Richard Francis, analyst for S&P, writes that "the rating is still B with a stable outlook. We (S&P) changed the rating to B from SD - selective default or selective non-fulfillment." S&P's last credit rating for the Dominican Republic was issued last October 2005. In the language of the risk assessors, a rating of B or BB means that bonds issued by such an entity are to be considered as, at least, speculative, with regards to payment capacity. Bonds rated CCC or CC have an even higher speculative capacity.
Over the last three months, waste has earned US$12 million for entrepreneurs who exported used paper and cardboard as well as scrap steel and iron overseas. According to El Caribe, 42.1 million kilograms of scrap was shipped out of the country. According to a report from the Dominican Center for Exports and Investment (DR-CEI)", Holland, Taiwan, China, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam are just some of the countries that received these exports. Holland received most of the scrap iron and steel, along with Taiwan. Used paper products went to Chile, Colombia and Peru.
The Dominican Republic's rice growers are in disagreement with the Central Bank's recently released figures of current harvest volumes. The bank said that there would be a 47.2% decrease in the size of the harvest during the first quarter of 2006. According to the rice growers, the shortfall will only be 35%. FENARROZ, the national federation of rice growers, along with the association that represents the growers from the northeast (APRANO) agree that the fall in rice production was not as severe as quoted in the Central Bank bulletin. According to the different sources, the decrease in rice production is due to serious attacks by rice diseases as well as lower than normal temperatures. However, the first quarter is not the principal production cycle, and much larger harvests are expected in May and June.
Consumers, long accustomed to product warranties and guarantees, are now learning that in the future these guarantees will cost extra. Customers are facing the sad news that appliances that used to carry multi-year guarantees are now offering one-year guarantees and then an insurance or service policy-often called "extended warranty" at additional cost, of course. According to Listin Diario, manufacturers have reduced the guarantee periods extended to their distributors, and these, in turn, have passed on the costs to their clients. As an example, the reporter shows how a RD$20,000 electric clothes dryer can cost RD$24,768 with a full, multi-year guarantee. Expensive appliances, such as a RD$116,000 refrigerator can cost as much as RD$133,200 with a five-year full-service insurance policy. Even cell phones can have insurance policies, varying in cost between RD$400 to RD$500 per year.
According to a report in Hoy newspaper based on data from the National Drug Control Department (DNCD), the areas where most drugs have been confiscated are Alma Rosa, Los Mina, Ensanche Luperon, Capotillo, Guachupita, Cristo Rey, Herrera, Villa Consuelo, Villa Maria, La Zurza, Las Caobas, Villa Agricolas, and Gualey in the National District and Boca Chica in the Province of Santo Domingo. With the exception of Boca Chica, which is an industrial and tourism enclave, most of these areas are low-income areas. The report indicates that current prices for drugs in the DR are: RD$400, RD$600 and RD$1,000 for an ecstasy pill; RD$250-RD$300 for a kilo of cocaine; RD$35-RD$50 for a portion of crack, and RD$20-RD$30 for a marijuana cigarette. Heroin goes for RD$9,000 the pound, or RD$200 for 100mg.
Mateo Moquete, chief of operations of the DNCD told parents to warn their children that they could be offered drugs when visiting high-priced nightspots.
The DNCD has considerably increased drug arrests and confiscations since the change of government. In the last four months of the year, the DNCD has confiscated 2,711 grams of drug in the National District and 974 in Santo Domingo Este municipality in 37 operations. Marijuana is the most frequently confiscated drug.
Dominican pitcher Juan Marichal is listed in 97th place amongst the Major League's 1,000 best players of all time. Marichal is the only Dominican to have made the Hall of Fame in Coperstown. According to a compilation by Derek Gentile, Baseball Best 1,000, Juan Marichal is the third best Latin ballplayer of all times, behind Puerto Rico's Roberto Clemente (64th) and Panamanian Rod Carew. Other Dominicans on the list are: Pedro Martinez (181), Cesar Cedeno (207), Sammy Sosa (241), Tony Fernandez (293), Pedro Guerrero (321), Tony Pena (378), Julio Franco (435), Ricardo Carty (467), Felipe Rojas Alou (485), George Bell (583), Mateo Rojas Alou (677), Julian Javier (690), Juan Samuel (811), Rafaelin Ramirez (816), Franklin Taveras (916), Alredo Griffin (927) and Damaso Garcia (994). Alex Rodriguez, who is of Dominican origin, is ranked 156th.
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