Dominican senator makes the cut in Transparency’s ‘grand corruption’

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic senator Felix Bautista isamong the nine finalists in Transparency International’s global online voting forthe person who best symbolizes grand corruption, with 9,786 votes, preceded byformer Panama president Ricardo Martinelli, with 10,166.

The polling concluded with the Petrobras case at 11,900votes, but led by Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovich, with 13,210.

The Germany/based organization says Felix Bautista, who wasaccused by his country’s Justice Mnistry of money laundering and embezzling morethan US$100 million, and with money from government and political connections,which “make him seem untouchable.”

Transparency opened a public vote December 9 seeking who bestfits in its "grand corruption" list with 15 "candidates"including the Petrobras case in Brazil, Martinelli and president Teodoro Obiangof Equatorial Guinea.

The voting period, which ended yesterday atwww.unmaskthecorrupt.org forms part of the "Expose the corrupt," the organization’sglobal benchmark in the fight against economic crimes in the public sector.