The strategic director of the presidential campaign of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), Danilo Medina, said that all the money in the world will not be able to keep the PRD in power. As reported in the Listin Diario, Danilo Medina said, “There is no possibility that they can steal the victory from Leonel Fernandez because the country has never known such a bad government as that headed by Mr. Hipolito Mejia.” Medina emphasized that the Dominican people abhors the present administration for the economic disaster it has caused. He said that given the public’s unanimous rejection of current administration, the PRD and PPH leaders are propagating a false illusion that they will stay in power regardless because they have control of the Executive Branch, the Central Electoral Board (JCE), Congress and the city governments.
“They say they have the government and they have all the money in the world to buy the vote of the poor – and it is true that they have money, and it is true that they are unscrupulous – but what they forget is that the heart of the people is with Leonel and the PLD,” he said.
Medina was the presidential candidate for the PLD in 2000, an election that was lost to current President Hipolito Mejia. Medina said he accepted his defeat then and did not exercise his right to a second round of voting because he felt the Dominican people had decided that the PRD should be the next government. But, he says, the same Dominican people have now chosen former President Fernandez.
Medina commented that while all previous PRD governments have been bad, the current administration has been “the worst fiasco in Dominican history.”
Listin Diario reports today that prices of basic food staples have increased an average of 2000% in the past 12 months. Wages in the private sector have increased 25%.
Medina said that the use of neither force nor tricks will allow Mejia to remain in power because the Dominican people are only waiting for 16 May to take their revenge on the government at the polling stations for all the abuse they have received.
Medina has explained that the election is validated by the certificate of electoral results issued by each polling station. Two delegates representing each Presidential candidate are present when the votes are counted and must sign a document that certifies the results of that table. All certificates are then tabulated to produce the final results and each party keeps a copy of that official certificate. Medina said that to reduce the possibility of fraud, the PLD would send the party’s better prepared members to represent it at the polling stations to ensure that they cannot be bought off and to work for the best interest of the party.