Ana Mitila Lora writes in the Listin Diario today on the dangers of Dominican Presidents accepting ?favors? from businesspeople. She begins by commenting on the scheduled televised interview of a former jail inmate today. ?The same person who generously put his private airplane on innumerable occasions at the service of the President of the Republic (is) the same person who, according to a report by Maria Isabel Soldevila published in Rumbo magazine, accompanied the President-elect at his home from 16-17 May as results of the May 2000 election were awaited, and to kill time told anecdotes of how he made his millions. The incoming President, elected this May 2004, does not appear to learn from past lessons. During the 1996-2000 period he used, among others, the private jet of a famous banker who had judicial charges pending against him. Last week he traveled to the United States aboard a private plane of another generous businessman.
Any moralist would ask how much does this marriage between governors and sectors in power cost Dominicans and the treasury. In exchange for what are so many favors given? How much are citizens going to pay for those disinterested services? There are many questions. Along the same lines, Nestor Kirchener, the Argentine governor who has accomplished the feat of maintaining a 70% popularity rate despite the time he has been at the post, advised his colleagues to keep their distance from the powerful. Those groups are the quasi-owners of the country, but the voters, especially the employees and underlings of those groups of power, are those who elect the governors. But the statesman has breakfast and dinner in Casa de Campo with those very same people, as happened on that memorable weekend. ?May God find us in a confessed state,? says Mitila Lora. ?When those who must make decisions on tax reform and the resumption of the IMF agreement, whose interests will they defend??