The headline news for Tuesday, 3 January 2023 was the well-published news that former President Hipólito Mejía had made a courtesy visit to former President Danilo Medina. In 2019, Mejía had expressed his support to the reelection aspirations of Medina, who sought to change the Constitution to run for a third period in 2020. Medina was not able to change the Constitution. So then he backed his Minister of Public Works Gonzalo Castillo for the position, causing a schism in the then-ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) whose president at the time, former President Leonel Fernandez, sought to be the party’s presidential candidate in 2020. Fernandez would accuse Medina of using technology to rig the primary. Fernandez would be replaced by Medina who is now the president of the PLD political party.
All along Mejía has maintained that heads of state should not be brought to justice because this destabilizes a country. Currently, the Attorney General has presented evidence of major corruption in the Medina administration (2012-2020), involving several of the former statement’s brothers and sisters and close government officers. The trials are still in the preparatory phases.
The news of the meeting of Danilo Medina and Hipólito Mejía was communicated by the PLD Communications Department and became the talk of the town in media, social media on Tuesday afternoon.
Mejía has said that he has the conviction that Presidents should have privileged treatment and be respected. He called prosecution of Presidents for irregularities “retaliation.” He said the prosecution of former Presidents for corruption in office serves to destabilize a nation citing cases in other Latin American countries when interviewed by the press last year.
The PLD statement indicated that around 11am on Tuesday, 3 January 2023, former President Hipólito Mejía, who is a high-ranking political leader of the ruling Modern Revolutionary Party, visited the apartment of the Medina family in Los Cacicazgos in the National District. The note from the opposition party explains that Mejía was received and spent time with Medina in a respectful and familiar environment.
Mejía was the contender for the presidential candidacy of the PRM in the 2016 and 2020 elections, being defeated by today President Luis Abinader.
The PLD communication indicates that in July 2020, a month before leaving government, Mejía also paid a courtesy visit to then President Danilo Medina at the Presidential Palace.
The PLD communication indicated that Mejía was accompanied by Minister of Defense Carlos Luciano Díaz Morfa. Díaz Morfa was his chief military security to then President Mejía and is a former chief of the Armed Forces. Díaz Morfa has formally requested that Congress approve a change to the Penal Code so that military be judged by separate military courts.
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4 January 2023