Top official slams U.S. funded agency as unfit to observe election

SANTO DOMINGO.- The Minister of Interior and Police and senior member of the ruling PLD party asked the Central Electoral Board (JCE) to reject Citizen Participation (PC) as an observer in the next presidential election, affirming that it has lost the objectivity which those organizations should ascribe to.

Jose Ramon Fadul said in PC’s current leadership there are officers at the service of the opposition PRD party and its presidential candidate Hipólito Mejía.

He said the NGO, which gets partial funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, lost its neutrality because it’s headed by a man who supports the PRD’s candidate, in reference to Samir Chami Isa. The official said Isa serves Mejia “body and soul,” noting that Electoral Law clearly bans partisans as observers.

“It’s a pity that as an organization Citizen Participation has become so zealous as it has done, with a specific candidate, because that automatically disqualifies it as an observer and loses credibility within society," the official said, quoted by diariolibre.com.

"Transparency should be for all, not just for the politicians. Civil society should also be transparent and it isn’t transparent if its lined to a party and a presidential candidate whom you’ve served as a fundraiser in very favorable conditions, to later come and appear as neutral," Fadul said, adding that Isa not only has disqualified himself, but also disqualified PC, because no one is going to accept their observation when it’s president has placed himself at the service of the PRD.