danilo is the most popular president in latin america

He seems to be very good at not ticking people off. I have not met anyone who says they hate him on the street or even online.

In Holland we have a word for that: "Allemansvriend". Meaning, someone who tries / manages to keep everybody as a friend. It's not necessary a positive qualification though.........

Next Crook

It is a shame that such a popular president will have to make way for a crook.

donP

Hard to get ?PI$$ED OFF? at oatmeal!
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I would say that political rivals do not count as valid critics.

Protected 'botellas'

dv8 said:

... corruption of former officials has not been dealt with in a satisfactory way.

Click to expand...

Those former 'botellas' are the present ones, protected by LF and his wife.
If DM had another term, he'd probably be able to get rid of a good number of them.


donP

The main problem of those who criticize politicians is that they compare them with perfection rather than reality. What Americans call corruption seems to be a built in feature of Dominican politics. In Barahona, there is a PRD guy that is is a "precandidato" for diputado, and he has been giving out rechargeable lights to people in his district who lose their electricity (for which I am sure they pay nothing, because no poor person in Barahona pays for electricity). Another precandidato is passing out vitamins and other maternity stuff to pregnant women. In the US, this would be considered corruption. Of course, paying a TV station to accuse all the other candidates of pretty much anything except cannibalism, would be okay in the US, and the poor would all live in darkness and the babies would be born less well nourished.

I am not a Dominican, so I am not one to judge. I can see both sides of this, however.

It seems to me that ideally, every Dominican president should tell people to pay for their electricity and water, explaining that these are services that are not free. And I am pretty sure that such a person would get no votes from anyone I know in Barahona, where those I know think that the ITBIS is enough to provide them with sporadic electricity and water, or perhaps full time water and electricity.

The DR is not perfect but the corruption is out in the open and not like other countries where it is done behind closed doors and protected by national security agency or some other law.

I am a Canadian tourist for the last 5 years. The changes I have seen in the Sosua area have been increasing and welcome.
We are retired and enjoy walking around the town and the beach. We like talking to the chicas and the vendors. My wife gets
hair and fingernail tips from them. I do not see the horrible things others on this site do. We walk around town day and nite
without problems.

?XO? apparently is not aware that Dominican politicians are given money each year,from the government for their foundations, to do ?Good Things? for their constituants.
It is NOT corruption.
They fund hospitals, ambulances, give out food & medicine, ?Light Bulbs?, and other things to make life a LITTLE better!!!!
It's Dominican ?Free Cheese?!
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The only ?Corrupt Part?"is that some of the money goes into the ?Diputados Y Senadores? pockets, and NEVER reaches the people who need it!!!!!!!

I did not say it was corruption, I said that it would be regarded as corruption in the US. I realize that elected officials have an allowance for such things.

I doubt that a "precandidato" would officially be given money to give away before he was officially the candidate.
That was what I was referring to.

In the US, millions go to TV and radio stations for commercials that pretty much annoy anyone who had heard them more than once. Mostly, they are negative and largely untrue accusations with unflattering and doctored photos.

I am not trying to be an allemansvriend, but Criss and XO are in agreement here. And I with them. The insidious nature of corruption is always evolving and being redefined. Normal and dominant business practices are made illegal and legal over and over again. 27% interest used to be loansharking and a very serious crime. Now it's master card and visa.

What is he waiting for to get the amendment to run for a second consecutive term, afterwards he should announce his platform to put the fernandez family and all the other gatos in a (newly to be built) maximum security prison.

?XO?, I bet you are ENJOYING, the negative adds between Christ & Scott as much as I AM?????????
POOR YOU, they BOTH should be in Jail, and not in the Governor's Mansion!!!!!!
They seem to think that if you tell lies about the other guy long enough, voters will believe them.
We get all 3 affiliates here in SD on ?CLARO TV?!
LOVE the SEXY Hispanic women on air Talent on all 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Makes the Weather & Traffic reports INTERESTING!!!!
They gey me ?UP? every morning!!!!!!!
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I detest the negative ads.
I did not vote for Crist when he was a Republican, nor did I vote fr him in the last Democratic Primary.
I don't think Crist is guilty of anything. The Ponzi scheme guy was not indicted until after Crist was elected.
Scott, on the other hand was clearly guilty of several kinds of theft when he ran that healthcare company.

I will vote for Crist for governor, because in 2012, Scott screwed the early voting schedule so bad that I had to wait five hours to vote. There were five thousand people waiting, because Scott had reduced the early voting hours by half.

You watch more Miami TV than I do. I do not have cable, I have an antenna and there are 48 channels. The catch is that half of them run only religious ranting and infomercials. Mostly I watch Netflix and PBS.

mofongoloco said:

I am not trying to be an allemansvriend, but Criss and XO are in agreement here. And I with them. The insidious nature of corruption is always evolving and being redefined. Normal and dominant business practices are made illegal and legal over and over again. 27% interest used to be loansharking and a very serious crime. Now it's master card and visa.

Click to expand...

I consider it to still be loansharking, and I pay off my card every month and pay no interest. The worst are the cash loan and check cashing joints; there and six of them on 7th Ave near where I live, but I do not borrow money from anyone.

We need to have 100% public funding for elections, and an end to all private donations. We need to limit campaigns to two months at the most and ban ads that are exclusively negative.

The American public is way too poorly informed. Only 36% could name the three branches of US government in a recent poll.

I am not criticizing the DR government, because I do not live there most of the time and am not a citizen. I was only commenting on news articles I noticed in the online Ecos del Sur, which is the closest thing to a Barahona newspaper.

If you think campaign in The US is bad then you haven't seen anything...It NEVER stops in The DR. Think that Leonel is already campaigning for elections 2 years from now.

Also how about the government taking on new loans (tons of them) and then use that money to fund it's own campaign at the detriment of the opposition (This is what The PLD and pretty much all of them do). So they give out things like mattresses, stoves, etc to potential voters...and around the end of the campaign or even the day that voting takes place buying votes outright and right in front of the polling stations for 500, 1000, pesos, etc...how's that for transparent?

In spite of all that we've made lots of progress though. Back in the times of Balaguer he would just send the military and his own "Banda Colora' ultra-right thugs to intimidate or disappear anyone who was a potential political threat.