Opposition party president will not “talk with thieves and a mob”

SANTO DOMINGO. – Senior opposition PRD party leader and constitutional lawyer Eduardo Jorge on Monday revealed an alleged plot to murder the organization’s president Miguel Vargas, but didn’t specify who’s behind it.

He said Vargas doesn’t want reconciliation with the group headed by the expelled Hipolito Mejía, despite calls for dialogue and the Catholic Church’s willingness to mediate in its crisis. "With cannot talk with thieves and a mob, you have to give the people the chance to vote, we vote in parties, the majority rules."

Interviewed on Diario Libre AM, Jorge said Vargas and the PRD agree to talk only through institutional channels, such as the national, provincial and municipal committees, "but not with a bishop in the middle, like Syria and Palestine."

He accused Mejía of striking “the real deal with the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD),” as shown by his “handing over our headquarters to the PLD administration.”

"Hipolito Mejía is already out of the party, he’s been ejected and can form his own organization with this mob of criminals and I hope it goes well for him, but there was a decision in the party’s disciplinary entities, there’s no chance for dialogue or unity with those expelled from the institution," he said.

Criminal conspiracy

Jorge said in addition to Vargas, a criminal plot has been hatched to kill PRD senior leaders Geovanny Tejeda, Julio Marinez and Aníbal García, and revealed that rifles with telescopic sights were found, which he affirms were used during yesterday’s melee.