Pedro Silverio, the head economist at the PUCMM economic think-tank Cenantillas, looks at the current crisis and sees that both big and little things are the causes. He states that the Mejia administration is currently going through one of its most dire moments, and, even worse, the situation is fostering a perception that there is no remedy, that the government has deceived those who elected it, and that many have lost hope. Nonetheless, the Mejia administration does not seem to get the message or, perhaps they only pretend to ignore it, muses Silverio. Among the larger items Silverio cites as causal agents of the crisis are the lack of fiscal discipline, incoherent monetary and exchange policies and the chaotic indebtedness assumed by the government – an indebtedness that President Mejia denounced in his speech in Bolivia. For Silverio, the small things in the public sector have been converted into large signs of the government’s managerial incapacity. As a sign of this, the economist points to a promise made by President Mejia to Jeb Bush that he would support Miami as the permanent site of the ALCA (the America’s Free Trade Association), and then in a lapse of memory, the government lent its support to Panama for the group’s site. A simple example, admits Silverio, but one that reflects the lack of seriousness with which the government makes and breaks its promises. Another small thing that Silverio points out is that the government announced the removal of duties for pharmaceuticals and the raw materials for making pharmaceuticals. Having done this, they next amended that the loss of duties had to be made up by the export sector, which would also have to contribute funds to resolve the electricity problem facing the government. This is why the export sector became very nervous when the President told his advisors that they had to come up with RD$1.7 billion within 48 hours, a feat they accomplished by adding on more debt. Silverio concludes that the common denominator of all of these tribulations is the lack of an official plan that would guide policies in a certain direction. While there is no logic to this jigsaw puzzle of a crisis, there is one piece too many for it to work. This extra piece, says Silverio, the one that is messing up the puzzle as a whole, is that called “re-election.”