In his usual enigmatic way, former President Joaquin Balaguer did not deny or confirm Partido Revolucionario Dominicano secretary general Hatuey de Camps’s statement that he (Balaguer) was sorry for having prosecuted former PRD man, President Salvador Jorge Blanco, for corruption in office. "About that I can’t comment because I am a friend of Castillo [Mario Vinicio Castillo, the lawyer who channeled the accusations] and of Hatuey, and in the name of those friendships I cannot intervene in that controversy," he said when questioned during his Sunday visit to mausoleum of his family within the Cristo Redentor Cemetery. "I cannot take a stand in favor of one or the other; for me what is most fair and logical is that I not intervene in that controversy," he said. The nonagenarian politician did give his opinion on whether a member of his party, the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano, should preside the Chamber of Deputies. "We help, we cooperate in what is possible, but we do not pretend to be assigned things that we did not win in the Junta Central Electoral," he said. The PRSC obtained only 17 of the 149 seats of the Chamber of Deputies. Sectors within the PRD had said that the late leader of the PRD, Dr. José Francisco Peña Gómez had promised the PRSC the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies if that party supported the PRD in the elections.
