Opposition party’s president, candidate part ways

Santo Domingo. – The president of Dominican Republic’s major opposition party (PRD) yesterday denied that he hasn’t provided the funds to him to its presidential candidate Hipólito Mejía, and also blamed him for their falling out.

Miguel Vargas said he has given Mejia’s campaign RD$4.0 million thus far, noting that “God’s justice” will satisfy him. I will be satisfied when God and history judges my more than 35 years in the party and of services to the country, where I’ve always given economical and political support to the PRD’s presidential, congressional and municipal candidates since my joining it in 1974, and that together with doctor Jose Francisco Peña Gomez have offered and organized all the party’s entire financial support, in the period from 1986 to 2000.”

“Those important accomplishments are up to God and history to judge,” Vargas said, “as He judges the conduct of the PRD leaders who prevented our party from forging a specific alliance with the PRSC party in 2008 to evict the PLD from power, and who in the past legislative and municipal elections harmed our candidates, even saying publicly that they weren’t even fit to aspire to the post of dog catchers, while as president the party, together with the national leadership, toured the country giving them political and economic support to our candidates.”

Vargas’s statement confirms a definitive rift between the two political leaders, and harms the PRD’s possibilities of reaching the Presidency from the next elections.