Electoral Board minor dispute now a full-blown crisis for opposition party

Santo Domingo.- A minor dispute over a Central Electoral Board (JCE) technician is now a full- blown crisis for the opposition PRD party, in which the faction controlled by its presidential candidate Hipólito Mejía contradicts the other headed by the organization’s president Miguel Vargas.

In the wake of the JCE informatics chief’s resignation last month, the PRD’s internal unity continues to be threatened, to the brink of a division, as evidenced by the radical demand of Mejia supporters that the five heads of the JCE resign, while the Vargas’ faction proposes alternatives to solve the deadlock.

Vargas said the PRD was neither consulted nor has knowledge of the demand by the Mejia faction, stated in a press conference headed by Emmanuel Esquea, Milagros Ortiz Bosch and Hugo Tolentino Dipp. They warned the JCE that "in a unextendable term of one working day, stop in the performance of their functions which you exert unconstitutionally, until the Central Electoral Board and the Superior Electoral Court are conformed."