Ruling party chaos: Dominican government ‘spies’ on its own

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic’s government has a list of 20 alleged members of the ruling party (PLD) who oppose president Danilo Medina’s bid for a consecutive second term, and aims to discredit them, according to Dr. Humberto Salazar, recently fired as head of the government’s health policy commission(CERSS).

The alleged list even includes officials who openly support former president Leonel Fernandez’s efforts to halt Medina’s push for reelection.

He said "desperate reelection agents plan to launch an offensive of accusations to smear anyone who in their path and thus try to lower resistance among those opposed to the reform of the Constitution."

The former official, a staunch supporter of Fernandez, also of the PLD, said on the list figure Franklin Almeyda, Rafael Núñez, Domingo Jimenez, Nicolas Calderon, Enrique Martinez, Felipe Payano, Freddy Perez, Domingo Tavarez, Ignacio Ditrén, Kirsys Fernandez, Francisco Mendez, Elena Fernandez, Cesar Fernandez, Luis Manuel Bonetti, Andrés Marranzini, Annia Valdez, Omar Liriano, Dionis Sanchez and Jose Rafael Vargas.

He said the list "has been given to an intelligence agency of the Government to investigate the private lives, customs, travael, property, bank accounts, telephone calls and anything that can be used to be hand over to Dominican television’s so-called investigative journalism programs and discredit them in that manner.”

"All these theoretical discussions are a warning that, if from the National Palace by despair that overwhelms those who run such a stupid plan as this, it’s possible that what happens is a sign that the stupidity of some has gone so far that by now they have no cure," Salazar said on Rumba 98.5FM.

The veteran politico was referring to the push by Medina supporters in Congress to amend the Constitution after the PLD’s top leaders decided exactly 30 days ago to back the move which would allow the president to run again.

“The stupidity of every human being taken independently is in itself a big enough problem, with all kinds of consequences not always possible to identify. But the picture changes when we consider the stupidity of people who have power, that is, control over the fate of other peoples,” Salazar said, quoting to the book ‘The stupidity of power,’ by Livraghi.