Medina inaugurates an ‘authoritarian political project’

Santo Domingo.- Minority OD party president Minou TavarezMirabal said she had warned of the danger of a far-reaching and authoritarian politicalproject long ago, when asked to comment after Danilo Medina’s inaugural speechfor his second term in office.

"I think that this project is a danger, it has beeninstalled, we’re facing an authoritarian government, a government that was allowedreelection precisely because of the bribery of a large part of the NationalCongress," the former deputy said.

She said Medina’s speech and designations, reveal acontinuation of this administration that has just ended and previous governmentsheaded by Leonel Fernandez.

"Medina also obtained his reelection thanks to a fraudthat had the most impact in recent years and for example in the just-selected hissister, his party colleague Lucia Medina to head the Chamber of Deputies, so whatlittle democracy we had seems to have gone to dire straits in the nextadministration," she said.

Tavarez noted that it was unusual that this time Medinaspoke in the third person, "he said try, will implement, or put inexecution, and especially drew much of my attention that he didn’t say what hedid as president during his four years in office."

She also noted that Medina didn’t mention the issue ofinstitutions, or how well the issue of Dominican Republic’s “deteriorated democracy”has been handled.