Presidential candidate for the minority party, Movimiento de Unidad e Integración Dominicana (UNIDO), Cesar Estrella Sahdalá said that political candidates are committing fraud when they promise what they know they cannot deliver. "Today many organizations meet with the traditional parties and explain their needs and the politicians include these in their government plan as a way of pleasing and garnering more votes," he told Hoy newspaper. "But when they are elected, they cannot fulfill the promises." He said "there is no Messiah that can resolve all the country’s problems." "It is not true, the problems are part of us, and the struggle is on to try to improve to the best possible, the living conditions of human beings regarding education, health it’s a permanent struggle." Sahdalá proposes to focus primarily on grade school education. He says if not the universities will continue to turn out bad and mediocre professionals. He said that what the country needs is technicians. "We have nothing to gain by graduating more liberal professionals when we can’t find the needed technicians," he said. He said that Dominicans are underestimated. "It is a tranquil people that you can push, push again, and the least expected day just pinch and you won’t believe the results," he said. Estrella Sahdalá, a former minister of work during a Balaguer administration, was chosen by consensus by the leading political parties to preside the JCE after years of contested elections. The 1996 presidential election was regarded as exemplary. Most of the credit for those elections was attributed to Estrella Sahdalá’s leadership and his will to undo corruption within the organization and the voting system. He said that the most important objective of his government would be to strengthen national institutions and consolidate rule of law, where the principal observers of the law would be the government and public workers. He believes in decentralization of government.
