Aborted vote keeps corrupt Dominican Government agency in the family

SANTO DOMINGO.- The aborted election to head the scandal fraught Dominican Municipal League (LMD) yesterday led to its postponement until 2012 and extend for one year the tenure of the interim secretary Fidias Aristy, relative of senator Amable Aristy, who hand-picked him as his successor.

Faced with the failure by the pro-government PRSC party to decide between Fidias Aristy and Joaquin Ricardo, LMD ad hoc president and Interior and Police minister Franklin Almeyda proposed the postponement, “to give the parties time to reach an agreement."

The failure to select Ricardo is a defeat of president Leonel Fernandez, the ruling PLD party and the PRSC, as the intense lobbying of the country’s mayors and members of the City councils failed to sway them, and instead were set to vote for Fidias Aristy, boosted by the influence of his political godfather.

During Amable Aristy’s tenure as LMD secretary, the agency many consider anachronistic was involved in three major scandals; the results of an audit which the Accounts Chamber used as political leverage against him, the issuing of diplomatic passports that members of city councils used to traffic people to Italy, and the widespread practice of placing people on its payroll even when they don’t have any function, known as botellas (bottles).