Minutes after his inaugural as 46th President of the Republic, Hipolito Mejia affirmed that he would personally instigate proceedings against any official of his administration suspected of corruption. He promised to impose "true morality" in public administration, eliminating, all "lies, duplicity, fraud and trickery." He will govern, he said, from a crystal palace, transparent in its operations to everyone’s scrutiny. Speaking to a packed national assembly chamber, Mejia addressed an audience of comprising the membership of both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, the diplomatic corps, the Presidents of Nicaragua, Taiwan, Costa Rica and Haiti, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, and the Prince of Asturias. The new President invoked the name of the late leader of the PRD party, former president whom Mejia served as Secretary of Agriculture, when speaking of his government’s "obligation to invest in people," as the basis for a just and harmonious society. "I want to realize the dearest dreams of our remembered leader and brother, Jose Francisco Peña Gomez and the good man who was not only my teacher, rather my second father, Antonio Guzman Fernandez." Mejia further stated that the DR’s relations with Haiti constitute a "marriage without possibility of divorce" and require close cooperation based on mutual respect for sovereignty. The new President also affirmed the independence of the judiciary, stating that no one in his government will "meddle with judges." He also emphasized the need for the state to continue its regulatory role in the process of privatization, and announced that he would "resolutely confront the grave problem" of electric power that has punished the country during recent weeks. Mejia said that the "era of unnecessary imports" has ended and that he will convert the DR into a net exporter, by creating a widening market for its products throughout the Caribbean. Confronting the challenges of globalization will require the government to adopt a series of economic, monetary, fiscal and tariff reforms, said Mejia, while "retaining a human face." Mejia’s twenty-two minute inaugural speech was carried live on local TV channels and radio stations.
