Former President Leonel Fern?ndez said on the ?Temas del D?a? TV program on Channel 23 that the PRD has converted democracy into a ?tigercracy? (tiguerocracia). The catchy new term could find its place in the political jargon used in the country and is derived from the word ?tiguere?, which is commonly used to describe all classes of hustlers many times using fraud and deception to obtain what they want. Fern?ndez is the front-runner for the PLD nomination in the party?s upcoming primary set for 29 June. As reported in El Caribe, Fern?ndez said that the indolence, insensibility and ineptness characterize the present government, which he described as incapable of resolving the problems that affect the country, such as the continued depreciation of the peso. He said that if there has not been a social uprising it is not because the tigercracy is in power, but because the people have hope that the PLD will return to the Presidency. He also spoke of the more than 125,000 redundant jobs in the government.
?This government has been incapable of everything, nothing has been done here. This is a government that builds latrines and sidewalk gullies with sovereign bond money — that is ineptitude,? said Fern?ndez. The crisis affecting the country, he continued, is not caused by external factors, but rather by the total distrust of the authorities.
Fern?ndez also criticized the present government for its amassed debt of RD$30 billion for the sovereign bonds and RD$15 billion in domestic borrowing. Fern?ndez said that if the government has been able to inaugurate any public works, it was because those jobs had been initiated during his government, and he challenged the government to show its own initiatives.
?The work of this government is cheap,? said Fern?ndez, complaining that the authorities try to take merit from his administration.
When asked to make recommendations to the present officials, he said:
?I can?t make any, because this has failed and people are just waiting for the next election to find a way out.?
Fern?ndez said that in all PRD administrations there has been a kind of economic fatalism that stagnates the growth of the economy and which the PRD politicians always attribute to external factors. He said that the PRD substitutes democracy with tigercracy. ?Impetuousness, arrogance and ?tigueraje? — that is what has been imposed on society,? he said.