Guatemalan Manfredo Marroquin, international elections expert and coordinator of Transparency International, says that Dominicans spend an exaggerated amount on their elections. He said that Dominican parties receive the most public funding for their activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. He estimated that the parties receive US$5 per vote, compared to US$2 in Central America. “That is an immense amount that no other country has. It is a lot for not being accountable and for not making a quality investment. It is an exaggerated expense for a country of the size of the Dominican Republic, which has very high poverty indexes,” he told Clave newspaper.
Bruno Wilhelm Speck, an international expert on electoral systems and party financing said that public funding needs to come with responsibility and accountability, which is not the Dominican case. He criticized the fact that the Dominican system, including the judiciary, is completely politicized. “What we have here is a vicious circle. The political parties are not accountable, the electoral justice is not in control, and the citizenry and the media are not interested,” he commented.