Margaritagate and The Danish Debacle

A while back journalist and lawyer (everyone's a lawyer in this country...I think this is because it is the easiest way to be entitled Doctor, since having a master's degree in law gives you the title Dr. in this country), Marcos Martínez of Santiago (the second city, the capital of the Cibao valley and heart, lungs and economic motor of the country), in his morning show on Channel 55 accused the First Lady, and current vice-presidential candidate for the PLD, Margarita Cedeño and senator Félix Bautista, the allegedly and proven corrupt, senator of the PLD for San Juan, of having bank accounts in Den Danske Bank (The Danish Bank, major bank in Denmark) with holdings of 43.8 million €. Martínez argued he had evidence to prove this, but did not produce in the show at that time. Later, however, he did produce the so-called evidence, and it became relatively obvious for any serious person that the accusations were a lie.

Anyway I became rather curious about this. Knowing that all politicians tend to get rich when in power in the DR, I would not be surpised that Fernández/Cedeño family has values of that kind, and we do know Félix Bautista has that kind of money (see one of my previous blogs). Furthermore, it was a Danish connection, and coming from Norway, this was almost like home for me. My gut reaction, however, was that the accusations could not be true. If Denmark is like Norway, you probably couldn't open a private account there without a national identity number, and, more importantly, if you are from the Caribbean and have 40 million € to hide, would you pick Denmark over let's say the Cayman Islands?

The whole story tells us something about the media in the DR, both the fringe, unserious media, represented by Marcos Martínez, and the mainstream media which is paralysed by its self-censorship (a fact that is much more evident in the Félix Bautista case than in this case, and in a host of other cases of scandals involving important people). Furthermore it gives insight into differences in political culture between Scandinavia and the DR, and teaches us the value of having a professional, autonomous and politically independent bureaucracy (even though we might dislike bureaucracy in Scandinavia as well, some time in the DR or other places like the DR, teaches you the value of rules and regulations that are upheld by the state).

Let me quickly first take up the story again. First, in February 2012 Martínez accuses the first lady and current vice-presidential candidate for owning a bank account with more than 40 million € in Den Danske Bank. Martínez had no evidence, but said he had evidence securely stored and would present them at a later date (first sign that this is a lie). Then, what struck me was that no serious newspaper or media picked up on this (that means they thought this could be true). Canal 55 and Martínez's show is a far way off mainstream media and any impact on the daily political agenda. Nevertheless, such an accusation, true or false, would have been great news-stuff in most other countries. In what seems to be a pattern, however, the main news-media only pick up critical stories of people close to power (the presidency, senators, ministers) when the accused denies the story. By denying the scandal, the accused has confirmed the accusation exists and it is ok for regular media to cover the story (the coverage, however, is generally that the negation of the accusation gets great coverage, while the accusation and potential evidence, do not). So when Margarita denied the accusations on twitter, if I remember correctly, and then stated that she would sue him for diffamation and what have you, the case exploded in the mainstream media (as a contrast the Félixgate, which actually seems true and involved high-end corruption in DR and Haiti, still receives little news coverage), and became dubbed the Margaritagate.

Sadly, and typically, the media and politicians here were more interested in the accusations and refutations among the politicians than finding out whether the whole thing was true. The Prosecutor General for instance should have been very interested in this. If it were true, then he could probably accuse the First Lady of tax evasion, corruption and what have you (in the USA this Prosecutor/Attorney General would have made a career on this, not so in the DR). If it were false, then he could run a case against the journalist for lies, defamation, etc. In the end the prosecutor general was not interested in doing anything (maybe out of fear that the accusations were true?). Therefore, I took matters into my own hands and contacted and tipped off two respectable Danish newspapers, one of which was interested and took the case. This was Berlingske Tidende which wrote this article on the matter. Apparently at the time via Facebook, Dominicans had sent messages to Den Danske Bank asking for information about the First lady's supposed account, but gotten the answer that any account information was classified and could not be released. The Berlingske Tidende article basically said that Den Danske Bank could not release any information about their clients, and that the Financial Supervisory Authority of Denmark could not give any statement about this either.

On behalf of the First Lady, the President of the Dominican Superintendence of the Banks, Ng Cortiñas, however, had gotten in contact with his Danish colleague, who informally had said to his Dominican colleague that no such bank account existed. This information, which the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority had gotten from Den Danske Bank, had to be kept a secret since the Danish Bank and the Financial Supervisory Authority officially could not give out such information. As a favour to his Dominican peer, the Danish helped the First lady out. Here, however, is where the culture clash and difference between a professional and politicised bureaucracy create problems in Denmark and DR.
While the Danish boss of the FSA is a professional (economist, I presume), the Dominican President of the Superintendencia de Bancos is a politician. Now that Ng Cortiñas (the president of the Superintendencia de Bancos) had gotten confirmed that the First Lady did not have a bank account in Den Danske Bank, he immediately held a press conference stating that Mikkel Holle from FSA in Denmark had confirmed this. The problem occurred when Berlingske Tidende asked Mikkel Holle about this and he of course had to deny to ever have given out any information to his Dominican colleague (which if it were true, would have been illegal). The Danish FSA of course assumed that the information would be handled with discretion and not used politically. The danes probably expected that Ng Cortiñas would tell this to the prosecutor general and maybe the president.

The case had indeed become political at that time. Marcos Martínez who originally made the accusation, was a former member of the PRD and its 1980s splinter party the PRI, and the PLD (the First Lady's party) used this information to discredit Martínez. He did not need much discrediting, really, because after some time he presented the following picture from a supposed internet bank account as evidence for the First Lady's and Félix Bautista's supposed accounts (on YouTube you can find several analyses of why these are false).

PRD followers, on the other hand, took the pictures to be real evidence and were even more strongly convinced that Margarita indeed had this account together with her brother Alberto Cedeño and the "crook" Félix Bautista. Furthermore, as news of the Berlingske Tidende news story came to the DR (it helped that BT translated the story into English), the PRD had reason to question Ng Cortiñas's story where he stated that his Danish colleagues had cleaned the First Lady's name. Now, with evidence from Denmark the PRD could say that what Ng Cortiñas told during the press conference was a lie. So the culture clash between the Dominican and Danish Bank superintendents also came back to haunt the Dominican government. Mikkel Holle, who Ng Cortiñas said he had spoken to, said he was surprised to be quoted in Dominican newspapers. In this case the Dominican Bank supervisor had fooled his Danish counterpart in order to score political points, but in the end he ended up raising more doubts about the First Lady. According to what I know from my sources, the conversation, or exchange of information between Denmark and the DR did actually take place, and it was confirmed that the First Lady does not have a bank account in Den Danske Bank (and of course, the evidence presented is false).

I was quoted in Berlingske Tidende that the opposition would believe this story, and that the PLD supporters would not believe this story, no matter the evidence. Even though in the previous blog I stated that during these electoral times one cannot trust surveys, I will here present an interesting graph demonstrating to which degree people now believe the First Lady actually has a bank account in Denmark. This survey was done by Greenberg on behalf of the newspaper Diario Libre (if anything, this survey was probably tilted in favour of the PRD), and more or less confirm my comment to BT.

Source: Diario Libre, Tuesday April 3. 
The columns show whether people think the accusations were true (Verdadero) false (Falso) or whether they do not know, or do not want to answer (No sabe/se rehúsa), and separate the answer according to which party the respondents will vote for on May 20. Only 8% of the PLD supporters believe the accusations to be true, while 55% of the PRD supporters have the same faith (33% in total population). Interestingly a full 21% of the PRD supporters believe them to be false, and also a 24% do not answer or do not know. The survey at least demonstrates that if accusations against your own party comes from the opposition, you will not trust them, and if the accusations come from your own against the other party, you are likely to trust them, but not blindly. There is therefore clearly a divide between the parties here, and it might lead us to speculate whether the revelations of so-called scandals may have any effect on the vote on May 20. Clearly in this case the evidence were really poor, but a better test might be the case of Félix Bautista and his corruption schemes which are well-documented (but silenced in the media). Will people from the PLD believe these accusations? If so, will that have any effect on their inclination to switch and vote for the PRD? The answer to the latter also depends on the likeability of the PRD candidate (which is not very high). Given the tightness of the DR election, even false scandals like this may have the sufficient effect to sway the election one way or the other, but I think the number of scandals that now pop up just is overkill and make the scandals lose any effect they might have...

Another problem with such false scandals and accusations is that they for one take away attention from the real scandals (the government is right now smoke-screening the Félix Bautista scandal inventing that a close associate and proven corrupted dirt-bag, of Hipólito Mejía may be complotting to remove President Martelly in Haiti), and false scandals make the real scandals less reliable.

Therefore it is important to know how you recognize a real scandal from a false one here in the DR, here are some ground rules:

1) False announcements of scandals are never accompanied with evidence right away. More often than not, the announcer would say that evidence is hidden to protect the announcer, and threaten to reveal the evidence any moment. Real scandals are presented with evidence right away, and almost always unequivocal evidence.

2) False announcements of scandals often come from political parties or people alligned with political parties, and regards the opposing party. Real scandals are almost always presented by Nuria Piera (and occassionally local journalists, Alicia Ortega or Acento.com.do)

3) False announcements of scandals generally get more attention in the media than real scandals. If they are against the government there is no risk in publishing them since they are false. If they are against the opposition the more attention the scandal is given the more damage it may make. Real scandals are never given much attention in mainstream media such as El Caribe, Hoy, Listín Diario until the denial is out and then only the denials are given attention.

4) False announcements of scandals are more often than not met with reactions that the scandalised victim will sue the announcer for defamation. There is no risk for the scandalised victim to go to court. If the accusations were true, evidence might get out, so a day in court is to be avoided at all costs. Real scandals are met with silence and denial, no one is sued.

The Martínez case is for now, getting to an end. Martínez has been summoned to court and has met the prosecutor in Santiago for interrogation on the matter. He still holds his information to be true (who wouldn't in this part of the world, admitting a lie or that you were wrong would clearly be against the "Claro!" culture nicely described by Diego Gambetta some years back), and Martínez even put out more evidence that the First Lady had made illegal payments to suppliers here in the DR as well. Martínez's morning show was also closed down last week. Explanations for the reason why, differ according to which party you belong to. The Canal 55 owners say it is because Martínez failed to show up for a couple of shows (which Martínez explains with being "held hostage" in his own home due to the police watching/surrounding his house making it impossible for him go get out). Martínez, however, argues that his show was closed down due to political pressure from the PLD. As always there are two versions here in the DR: the official version and the anti-government version. And, as always, no one is really interested in finding out which is closest to the truth.

Martínez will get his day in court since he was sued by the First Lady. He might get sentenced, probably just fined, we'll see, but since this was clearly a blunt lie, it seems obvious that he will lose any case in court. Should, however, the PRD win the presidential elections on May 20, I will not be surprised if Martínez will be back as a journalist quite soon, or get a good job in the new government. Hipólito Mejía, for instance, said when he was in New York during Easter, that he believes Martínez's accusations to be true, which is not surprising coming from that guy. Mejía has a very interesting view and vision of reality, and has, just as President Leonel Fernández, no problems working with previously convicted persons.