The executive vice president of the Institutionality and Justice Foundation, Servio Tulio Castaños Guzmán expresses his concern that this has been a municipal electoral campaign without proposals. He complained about the lack of debates and content with solutions to specific problems of each municipality.
For Castaños Guzmán it is very alarming that the campaign has been all about promoting the mug shots and videos of candidates, without the candidates elaborating on their solutions to specific problems in terms of citizen security, gender violence, solid waste management, storm drainage and others.
Finjus’ spokesperson regretted that the current municipal election campaign is empty, characterized by the promotion of portraits, poses and zero debates.
“There are no proposals on the issue of security and local governments play a role. That is to say: it is a campaign without content and more than developing ideas, proposals, what is being promoted here are photos and poses,” said Castaños Guzmán in statements to N Digital.
Castaños Guzmán regretted that very little has been debated, which, in his opinion, is very worrying because there are more than 17,000 candidates who aspire to be mayors, councilors, directors and members whose plans for government are unknown.
Finjus’ spokesperson indicated that Dominican society knows little about what the candidates will do to solve storm drainage.
“People don’t know what their security, violence and gender proposals will be. Everything that has to do with garbage management,” he said.
And he continued saying: “If there is a country that lacks policies in the area of garbage and its treatment, it is the Dominican Republic….”
In the capital city, Domingo Contreras of the Rescate RD coalition, has been the exception appearing in press conferences to give his stand on several of the issues.
Castaños Guzmán is also concerned about the many allied parties into this election. The ruling Modern Revolutionary Party leads the Official Bloc, with 22 allied political organizations and movements. While the opposition, led by the Dominican Liberation, Dominican Revolutionary and People’s Force parties makes up Rescate-RD.
“It is worrying because if there is a complex electoral process, with so many alliances, it is precisely this one, with thousands of candidates. Never before have so many alliances been seen,” he indicated.
Regarding the projections on abstention, Castaños Guzmán stated that in the last electoral process, at the congressional level, abstention exceeded 41% of the electorate and he hopes that in the municipal elections, in 2024, it will be much lower.
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N Digital
8 February 2024