Opposition candidate calls alleged Haiti plot “smoke screen”

SANTO DOMINGO.- The opposition PRD party’s presidential candidate on Friday called the Dominican and Haitian governments’ denounced plot allegedly headed by his former Security Detail chief to destabilize Michel Martelly’s Administration a "smoke screen."

Hipólito Mejía said the allegation against ex Army coronel Pedro Julio (Pepe) Goico seeks to displace the corruption accusations launched against ruling PLD party senator Felix Bautista, who obtained lucrative construction contracts in post-quake Haiti.

"You think that a poor devil from here can topple a government, that’s a smoke screen to shove the topic of Felix Bautista aside and of the marked 12 point fall of Danilo and Margarita in the surveys which we already took," Mejía said in reference to the ruling PLD party ticket of Medina and Cedeño.

The ex president spoke before students in Santiago’s PUCMM University Friday morning, just two hours after Haiti authorities announced the arrest of one of the alleged plotters.