The new government of President Leonel Fernandez of the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) is being accused of carrying out massive and unfair dismissals of civil servants of the previous administration by the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC), headed by former President, Dr Joaquin Balaguer. The two most prominent leaders of the party after Dr. Balaguer, Donald Reid Cabral and Federico Antun Battle, have threatened to take the case to the International Labor Organization.
The Listin Diario newspaper reports that PRSC lawyers are collecting evidence and hearing testimony from members of their party and others of the opposition in order to make their case before the ILO. The claim of Mr. Reid Cabral and Mr. Antun Battle is that employees with 30 to 40 years service in government are not only being dismissed, but are also being “mistreated” by the new authorities. They also accuse the new government of pressuring the civil servants to leave the PRSC and join the PLD, and those who have refused have been terminated.
Dr. Fernandez won the 30 June presidential run-off with the strong support of Dr. Balaguer and the PRSC, without whose backing the current President would have almost surely lost to Dr. Jose Francisco Peña Gomez of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano. Although high-ranking members of the PRSC said on several occasions that the electoral support for the PLD was “unconditional”, it would now appear that there was some kind of understanding, at least among PRSC members, that a “housecleaning” of civil servants would not occur.
At the same time that the PRSC is complaining about dismissals of their members from the government, mid and lower level PLD members have expressed their dissatisfaction at not being hired by the new authorities.