The Dominican Republic leaves the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Here are my first, rapid thoughts and more than anything else a recount of the process leading to the Dominican withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I will probably post more soon on different aspects of this process. 

On Tuesday, November 4, the Dominican Constitutional Court declared the State's adherence to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) as inconstitutional. With effect one year from now the Dominican Republic will join Venezuela as the only other Latin American nation that does not accept the jurisdiction of the IACtHR. The country, however, is still bound by the American Convention which it signed and ratified in 1977, and be part of the system of supervision of human rights by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The Dominican Constitutional Court in its sentence 0256/14 declared that the procedures by which the Dominican State adhered to the jurisdiction of the IACtHR in 1999 were inconstitutional. The Dominican Republic as the last Latin-American nation, accepted the IACtHR's jurisdiction by presidential decree in 1999 during the first administration of President Leonel Fernández (PLD -Partido de la Liberación Dominicana). The key question the Constitutional Tribunal considered was whether the adherence to the IACtHR's jurisdiction required congressional confirmation or not. The Constitutional Tribunal argued that it did and that President Fernández at the time had usurped his presidential powers. The Constitutional Tribunal based its decision on article 37.14 of the 1994 Constitution, which states that it is a faculty of Congress to approve or reject any international treaty or convention, in addition to a series of other articles (55.6, 46, and 99.3/4) The Prosecutor General (in 2013), however, argued that the adherence to the IACtHR's jurisdiction followed naturally from the ratification of the American Convention according to its article 62.1, and that congressional ratification was not required. Furthermore, the Prosecutor General argued that the adherence to the IACtHR did not constitute the signing of an international treaty. In 2005, however, during President Fernández's second administration, the Prosecutor General (same person as in 2013), argued in favour of declaring unconstitutional the 1999 decree signed by President Fernández during his first administration (1996-2000).

The background for the decision made by the Constitutional Tribunal is the issue of the right to nationality for children of Haitian migrants born on Dominican soil and in particular two sentences that deal with this issue in the IACtHR. In a groundbreaking sentence, Children Yean and Bosico vs. the Dominican State, the IACtHR sentenced the State to give Dominican citizenship to the children of Haitian ascent Yean and Bosico, change and ease bureaucratic procedures for obtaining citizenship and respect the State's own ius soli clause in the 1966 Constitution. The bone of contention then and later was whether children of illegal migrants born in the Dominican Republic had a right to Dominican citizenship. The Yean and Bosico sentence argued that the illegal status of migrants was not hereditary and that the Dominican legal system at the time did not have any exemption in the ius soli clause for children of illegal migrants. The State also argued that Haitian migrants should be considered in transit - children of persons in transit, in addition to children of diplomats, born on Dominican soil were exempt from the ius soli clause - but the IACtHR did not accept that argument and pointed to the fact that transit in Dominican law had since 1939 been defined as a stay of maximum 10 days. After this sentence opponents of the Inter-American System of Human Rights filed a suit of unconstitutionality in November of 2005 against the Dominican adherence to the IACtHR in the Supreme Court (at the time also the Constitutional Court). It was on the basis of this petition that the Constitutional Tribunal emitted its sentence on November 4. In addition, legal actions through migration laws (2004) and a reformed Constitution (2010) aimed to restrict the ius soli clause and exclude children of illegal migrants from their right to Dominican citizenship. Furthermore, the Central Electoral Board (responsible for emitting birth certificates and overseeing the civil register) and the Constitutional Tribunal (in a well known sentence, 168/13) gave the laws retroactive effect back to 1929.

Even though the sentence declaring the Dominican State's adherence to the IACtHR for unconstitutional had been expected for some time, a second sentence in the IACtHR that came only a week earlier, triggered the latest action of the Constitutional Tribunal. In the sentence in the case Dominican and Haitian people expelled vs the Dominican State, published October 28, the IACtHR sentences the State to repair damages for Dominicans and Haitians illegally expelled in 1999 and 2000 from the Dominican Republic. The case discusses the long-standing and serious problem of illegal expulsions of Dominicans and Haitians (often on the merit of their skin colour) and condems the State's activities. The more critical issue for the Dominican State is the fact that the unanimous sentence declares that the Cosntitutional Tribunal sentence 168/13 - which gave the restriction of ius soli in the 2010 Dominican Constitution retroactive effect back to 1929 and stripped many people of their Dominican citizenship sending many thousand Dominicans and Dominican-Haitians into statelessness - should de facto be annulled (or declared without any effect). In addition the sentence also specifies that any constitutional, legal, or administrative decision or interpretation that restricts the right to citizenship of children born on Dominican soil should also be rendered without any effect. This means that the IACtHR basically annuls all actions made by the Dominican State in the migratory and citizenship areas restricting the ius solis of the previous Constitution (see pp. 171-172 of the sentence). One week after the IACtHR published its sentence, the Constitutional Tribunal withdrew the Dominican Republic from the IACtHR. All is not totally black, however, since the Dominican state still must meet its obligations to comply with all the sentences against the State in the IACtHR. On the other hand, following the logic of the Constitutional Tribunal, dominant voices in the Dominican Republic are bound to argue the opposite on the argument that the Dominican Republic never accepted the jurisdiction of the IACtHR and that this means that the State has no obligation to comply with the IACtHR sentences.

This is a dark moment for the Dominican democracy and the protection of the most vulnerable groups living in the country, the Haitian migrants and Dominican-Haitians. It is also a dark moment for the IACtHR and the whole IASHR, which now results weakened. Even thought the Dominican Republic may be a small and unimportant country in Latin America it is still the most democratic and democratically stable country to ever leave the IACtHR. Peru left in 2000 under Fujimori, an act that never took effect since Fujimori resigned not long after, and Venezuela withdrew under Chávez (in addition Trinidad and Tobago withdrew in 1998). The Dominican case, I fear, is likely to be the worst blow of them all. Peru returned after re-democratisation with Fujimori's resignation, and it is not unlikely that Venezuela would return should the Maduro-regime fall or the opposition win a future election. Today, however, the Dominican Republic is led by its most international human rights friendly government in decades, if not ever, and the regime is a stable electoral democracy, not any form of populist authoritarian regime. It therefore seems very unlikely today that the Dominican Republic will return any time soon.

Scandals, Lies and videotapes: A follow-up on Félix Bautista and the Haitian corruption case

Things happen so quickly during these elections it is impossible to keep track. In this blog I will list all the recent scandals that have emerged, one crazier than the other (and all lies, it seems like), before I analyse the government's desperate answer to the Nuria revealed scandal involving Félix Bautista, a PLD senator, organisational secretary of the PLD, and as close to a president as the president's own son. It seems like I will never get time to write on the institutions and do more "political sciency" analyses of the parties, party system, electoral system, etc. We'll hopefully come back to that in May.

First an update on the Félix Bautista scandals, which are not few, before I talk about the others (which also are quite many). Nuria's revelation of Félix Bautista's corruption schemes, his fortune, and the bribing of two presidential candidates in Haiti has made the governing party rather desperate. The evidence Nuria has presented is very convincing and as mentioned earlier: in most other countries Félix Bautista would be under investigation, potentially in custody, and his party would have tried as hard as it could to distance itself from him. In the DR none of this is occurring. Since the first (of the last of many) revelations regarding Félix Bautista, Nuria has provided more evidence that nails Félix Bautista to the coffin. First of all, as everyone here knows, many journalists receive money from the government so that they will talk nicely about the government. Nuria is the first to present evidence of this by putting forward cheques from Bautista to "journalist" José Laluz who used to work in the famous morning debate show "El gobierno de la mañana". She also demonstrated that Bautista hires the ASISA survey company, which not surprisingly is one of the companies that give the highest popular advantage to the PLD and Danilo Medina. Nuria also presented evidence of payments to another PLD senator, an ex-bureaucrat of Panamá (a country in which one of Bautista's company is working to get construction contracts). Finally she presented two interesting news: the government is seeking high and low for her sources (instead of investigating Bautista), and several of the people Nuria has demonstrated is paying or receiving money in an irregular way, have sought official letters from their banks that deny Nuria's accusations. None have gotten this so far. Today, April 18, acento.com.do also produced the Cámara de Cuentas (Chamber of Account, the state's external auditing agency) report for OISOE (Oficina de Ingenieros Supervisores de Obras del Estado), which Félix Bautista headed between 2006 and 2010. It had been rumoured for some time that the audit existed, but that it demonstrated so many irregularities that it had been shelved. Licelot Marte de Barrios, the distinguished and respected PRSC politicians who deads CdC said that no audit had been shelved, and dared the media to prove this. Acento did so within a couple of days, and published a summary of the shelved report (which means that indeed Marte de Barrios did conceal this report to protect Félix Bautista...which of course constitutes another scandals and discredits even more the already heavily discredited CdC9. To make a long story short, there has been no control of the budget and thousands of million Dominican Peso are unaccounted for (either going out or in and to different sources). From the government's side, no news: investigations have not come up with anything (My guess is: there are no investigations).

The revelations Nuria has presented with have been great food for the PRD in their attack on this government's corruption. Therefore, the story has been used for what it is worth politically, and as always rumours are created. This time the PRD started rumours that Nuria had fled the country to avoid government persecution. Several I know updated their Facebook pages with support-statements for Nuria, etc. (it'll be interesting to see how long the PRD will be fond of Nuria if the PRD wins the elections in May). Nuria, however, was travelling for private reasons and finally had to send out twitter messages denying the rumours that she was hiding from the PLD-government. The case has also become a minor international embarrasment not only for the country, but indeed for the press. The journalist covering the case for Le Monde has compared the Haitian and Dominican press coverage of the case and found that the Haitian press seems much more interested in the case, and that the Dominican mainstream media hushes the case down. The latter is also my impression, and as mentioned earlier, mainstream media only overs the Félixgate when there are official denials from the government, and then rarely on the front page. This has been noted in Hoy, which is becoming slightly more critical, but has not created any investigative journalism in that newspaper either.

What is new this time is that the scandal finally is well substantiated. This never happens in the DR. Scandals used to be invented, like the Margaritagate, or when in 2004 the PRD government put out false tapes that Leonel Fernández was trying to destabilise the Peso, or whenever Vincho Castillo (FNP) opens his mouth, and so on and so forth. Maybe the government and Danilo's electoral campaign is just taken aback by Nuria's audacity to actually publish evidence of corruption. Maybe it is because they really do not know what to do with Bautista (how does one actually perform an investigation into government corruption? The PLD doesn't seem to know or care)? Or, maybe it is that the Danilo campaign has figures showing them to lose the elections and therefore they are getting desperate. What is clear is that Nuria's revelations have unleashed a series of desperate measures from the PLD, one more incredible than the other. In sum the government/PLD has accused parts of the PRD of plotting to coup Michel Martelly in Haiti, use that to stop the elections in the DR, and to want to kill the president of their own party, Miguel Vargas Maldonado (PRD). Before those cases, some other incredible stuff.

It started quite innocently with the Senate sending an official apology to Barack Obama for Hipólito Mejía's (PRD) statements in New York that Barack Obama was from Africa (and born over there) (31 of 32 Senators signed, only Amable Aristy Castro of the PRSC and ally of Hipólito Mejía did not sign). See the tape here. As always with Mejía, this was only a bad joke, which the PLD has taken out of context, but a good example of how one can overcome obstacles to succeed (Obama was the example). It is obviously not true that Obama was born over there (por allá) since Obama is born in Hawaii, but that he comes from Africa is partially true since his father was from Kenya. I would not be the least surprised that Mejía would make a point of this, he has been known to comment on skin colour earlier, and after all he is a Dominican, and if there is one place where genetics is important, it is here. Nevertheless, if Mejía said this it is only a minor error (although typical, and one that points towards a potential anti-african sentiment in Mejía), said in a jokingly tone to make a point that your background (African) does not matter. The irony, however, is that the way the apology is formulated it looks like the Senate finds it to be more of an insult to argue that one is born and/or have ancestors in Africa than the fact that Mejía potentially put in a little lie about the US president. I do actually believe that the Senate considers the "accusation" that one is born and have ancestors in Africa to be an insult. No matter the truth of the matter, this case is just as embarrassing for the Senate as it is for Mejía, and I am sure whoever received this in the White House is having a big laugh. Considering that this was an official letter sent to the President of the USA from the Dominican Senate, it is also an embarrassment for the Dominican Republic. The other irony is that  the Senate is dominated by the PLD (31 of 32 senators) and the PLD has since 1994 been allied to a racist and xenophobic party, the FNP, the PLD itself has been no stranger to racist attacks on its opponents when this has been necessary, and has implemented decrees, laws and a new constitution that is highly discriminatory against (black) haitians, but now find it prudent to defend the US president from attacks that potentially has discriminatory origins.

I mentioned the other day the surveys. The one ordered by Diario Libre (which I used in my blog on Margaritagate), has been surrounded by controversy. I heard early on that rumours within the PLD was that the numbers had been altered to favour the PRD before publication. I can understand the PLD wanting to put out that rumour given the fact that this survey is one of the more serious ones. The reason why it was altered, however, is a really interesting and bizarre story. The accusation is that Luis Alvarez Renta who is in jail in connection with the BANINTER bankruptcy in 2003, threatened to kidnap and/or kill the owner of Diario Libre, Arturo Pellerano, who is also in jail but due the bankruptcy of BanCredito the same year, if he did not change the results of the Greenberg survey published in Diario Libre in favour of Hipólito Mejía. The accusations were made by journalists favourable to the PLD, and former members of the famous "El Gobierno de la Mañana", who we know now, after the exposé of Félix Bautista, receive money from Bautista or the PLD. By the way: Funny how Pellerano could feel threatened by a threat to kidnap him considering he is in jail. Alvarez Renta took the accusations seriously and has asked the prosecutor general to investigate.

Last week the really big bomb (of desperation of the PLD) was dropped. The foreign minister of the DR, the Minister of Justice in Haiti, the prosecutor general of the DR, together with the ambassadors of Haiti and the Dominican Republic accused Pepe Goico and a Haitian Businessman Pierre Kansky of plotting to coup President Michel Martelly. A press conference was called to announce this bomb, a press conference in which no questions could be asked, only accusations be thrown out so that media coverage was secure and people could forget about Félix Bautista stealing tax payers money in order to get rich. The evidence was two taped phone conversations between Pepe Goico and Pierre Kansky. The quality was horrible and only demonstrates that Pepe Goico wanted to make it known in Haiti that Nuria Piera had proven that Michel Martelly was taking bribes from Félix Bautista. For the PLD/Government this was evidence enough that Pepe Goico/PRD was planning to destabilise Haiti. Apparently Nuria was being used by the PRD who had falsified the evidence Nuria presented in order to destabilise the president of the neighbouring country (see Nuria's reaction here). Why would the PRD do this, you might ask? Well, presidential candidate Danilo Medina explained it all a couple of days later: According to Danilo Medina, the PRD plans to generate disorder in Haiti via Pepe Goico so that the elections in the Dominican Republic would have to be cancelled. Medina argues that PRD and Hipólito is planning this because they are losing the election and Hipólito is a cry-baby (llorón). Before I go on here, it should be mentioned that it is not accidental that the PLD is attacking the PRD via Pepe Goico, who is Hipólito Mejía's and the PRD's own Félix Bautista. He is a weak spot for Mejía, and Mejía should have gotten rid of him years ago...I will write more on Pepe Goico later, suffice to say that when in government he is equally bad as Félix Bautista.

There are so many bad sides to this case for the DR, its government and the ruling party, the PLD:
The prosecutor general has taken the case seriously and sent it for investigation with the prosecutor of the Distrito Nacional, i.e. Santo Domingo, who is in a bind. Either she argues the case has merits and creates  international news: Man close to presidential candidate Mejía is plotting to take down Martelly (based on no evidence whatsoever), or she goes against her own government and presidential candidate Medina, and says that the whole press conference was full of lies (which is the truth). My guess is, she won't do much at all. The accusations, however, are serious, and they are an embarrasment to the DR, its government and governing party, the PLD. 1) First of all, it is obvious that this is not a complot. Nothing in the taped conversation suggests a complot, absolutely nothing. Second, how could a Dominican destabilise the Haitian government when he has no army in Haiti and the country is filled with 14,000 UN troops? Third, what are the motives? Etc. 2) The prosecutor general is taking this case seriously, while he would not touch the Félix Bautista case which is well evidenced, and has resulted in an international scandal already. This is also a huge embarrasment for the DR. Danilo Medina challenged the PRD and others to sue Bautista in a civil lawsuit, while he asked the prosecutor and the state to investigate Pepe Goico. It is actually Pepe Goico that should sue the state in this case. 3) The case demonstrates that the government has never stopped its bad practice of listening in on phone calls they have no business or right to listen to (see also below). Leonel government is just as bad as Mejía's in that regard. 4) The PLD/Government is implying that Nuria Piera's story of Félix Bautista is part of the plan to destabilise Martelly. This is a government attempt to drag into the mud the best, and most respected journalist in the country. No wonder the International Press institute expressed concerns about press freedom in the DR during these campaigns. The government is already trying to find Nuria's sources and has earlier searched other journalists' homes after exposés of scandals. 5) It is serious that the government of Haiti is picking sides in this elections. By joining forces with the DR government in this matter, they knowingly interfere with the Dominican elections. Normally, Dominican authorities cry foul whenever anyone makes an opinion on national politics. Here official Haiti is. Clearly Martelly and Fernández and the PLD have interests in common here: discredit Nuria (save Martelly, the PLD and Bautista), get Danilo elected (after all Martelly was given the highest dominican order, Duarte, Sánchez y Mella, when he visited three weeks ago).

The case is also serious because it demonstrates that the media here: 1) receives money from the government in order to work as "periodistas de bocina" (journalist loudspeakers) for the government; 2) the attention given to this case, or the lack thereof, demonstrates that the mainstream media fears the government or does not want to touch it, and that in Haiti the press is much more critical to its government; 3) the lack of questions from the press as to how the government got a hold of this tape, whether the tapping of the phone conversation was legal, questioning how the governments could argue for a complot when the tape reveals no evidence of such, and the massive attention this is given in the major newspapers, is an embarrasment to the media corporations in this country (exception is acento.com.do), 4) on a more personal note, the case really drags Ruben Silié, the former director of FLACSO in the DR, and respected social scientist (apparently Silié did not like being at the press conference, but as Dominican ambassador to Haiti, he was present. Silié also felt the need to express his concerns for Dominican-Haitian relations after the accusations in a letter written to El Día). All in all, this whole case is an embarrasment to the government, the PLD, and Danilo Medina because it is so clearly based on a lie, and because it demonstrates the government's total lack of interest in investigating what is clearly illegal and corrupt activities.

One would think that a trumped-up complot against the Haitian government was the worst the PLD/Government could come up with, but it was not...the next case is not as embarrassing at the international level, but just as unfounded and weird.

The latest, and maybe the craziest, or at least as crazy as the complot/coup-plans in Haiti, is that Guido Gómez Mazara, a PRD politician, together with other colleagues in the PRD are supposed to plan to kill the president of the PRD Miguel Vargas Maldonado. This was announced on April 17 in a press conferene by 5 PRD (!) representatives in the Chamber of Deputies (not surprisingly no questions were allowed). To this story one should add that Miguel Vargas and Hipólito Mejía are no longer friends after Mejía won the PRD primaries, and Miguel Vargas cried foul and fraud. Vargas still in control of the PRD as president of the party, has been reluctant to support Hipólito's campaign, but has come around somewhat. It is nevertheless a divided party that goes to the polls, and most observers blame this on Miguel Vargas. Apparently a conversation has been taped in which Gómez Mazara states that what Miguel Vargas needs is a bullett ("darle un tiro es lo que hay que hacer"). If the tape is the real deal, then this is just typical Dominican Tigueraje talking. I would not be suprised in any conversation with top politicians here that they state that their opponent is the worst ever, and in context say that the guy needs a bullett. But, what the press is not asking yet, is how PRD representatives have access to taped conversations between to other PRD-politicians. This case is of course yet another attempt to discredit the opposition, and the accusations are lies. The "clever" move this time is that it is the PRD that is making the accusations, not the PLD. The idea behind this is of course to increase the legitimacy of the accusations. Well, my guess is that these 5 PRD-representatives have been paid (maybe by Félix Bautista?) and are quite ready to leave the party (at least if Hipólito Mejía does not win the elections). And a simple google search on one of the main accusers, Victor Gómez Casanova, makes the accusation lose any legitimacy. The case is now being followed up by the prosecutor general who takes the accusations seriously, but who has his hands full with a host of phony cases recently. It will be interesting to see if the prosecutor general will ask where the tape comes from given the fact that Dominican law only accepts taping of private conversations after a court ruling giving permission to do so. 

So within a week we now "know" that the PRD is using Nuria Piera in order to remove Haitian President Martelly in order to stop the elections in the DR because they know they are losing to Danilo Medina, and because they are dissatisfied with the party president, Miguel Vargas Maldonado, the PRD is planning to kill him. Well, the DR is a good example of what happens when there are no ideologies or policies to debate, then scandals and lies take over.

Corruption in Hispaniola: Félix Bautista and Michel Martelly

On Saturday, March 31, the most respected investigative journalist in the Dominican Republic dropped a bomb of evidence linking Senator Félix Bautista's (PLD) construction firms to a host of illegal payments to among others, current President of Haiti, Michell Martelly. Even though the evidence from Nuria seem very convincing, and the whole case in most other countries I know, amounts to a big, international scandal, the local media in the DR, with the exception of acento.com.do has basically ignored the whole thing, and only published the denials of the accused not the details of the case itself. But before I lay out the details of this international scandal, let's look at Félix Bautista.

Félix Bautista is the Senator for PLD for the region San Juan, elected in 2010, and before that he worked for all three of Leonel's administrations. As many anonymous politicians that raise to fame, he worked in construction. During Leonel's first government (1996-2000) Bautista was director of OISOE (or OCOE which it was called then), which is the office of Enginerial Supervision of Public Construction Works. The office signs and gives out contracts for public construction work and oversees these. The office works somehow independently of the Ministry of Public Works. Bautista held the same position from 2004-2010 when he became Senator. As head of OISOE, as Nuria demonstrates, Bautista became a very rich man in a very illegal manner. In 2000 he was a short time in jail due to corruption, and in 2007 he created an institutional crisis when he signed contracts with Sun Land worth 130 million USD. These contracts which implied the state taking up loans for public works would have to pass by Congress, according to the constitution, which they didn't. The contracts were annulled, but the Dominican State lost a lot of money. The case, however, reached the Supreme Court for annulment and to declare the government's actions for unconstitutional. In a weird sentence that had as consequence a strict restriction of judicial review, the Supreme court declared that political parties or congress members could not be interested parties in this case or almost any case of judicial review. On these grounds the case was dismissed. Afterwards most "experts" have argued that this sentence was influenced by the government.

There have been a series of scandals during this campaign. Not surprising most have struck the government, and the presidential ticket of Danilo Medina and Margarita. The more colourful and interesting were the one that Danilo Medina (and Félix Bautista and the technical secretary to the President, Temistocles Montás) had plagiarised their thesis and that Medina never actually finished his Engineering degree in the UASD (Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo). The profesor who made these accusations lost his job (his job was to investigate fraud and plagiarism in the UASD). The other, very interesting, scandal hit the current first lady Margarita Cedeño, when a journalist based in Santiago argued that she (and Félix Bautista) had more than 40 million € in Den Danske Bank. The accusations were false, but have had their effect (I will write more on this later).

The latest scandal, however, is different. First of all it comes from Nuria Piera, one of few investigative journalist in the country, and by far the most known and respected investigative journalists in the country. Second, the evidence for the accusations seem solid (I did not watch her show on Saturday, but all is reported at www.acento.com.do, and the evidence can be found here). Third, they involve a Dominican Senator who happens to be President Leonel Fernández's closest ally, and according to the media a person Leonel considers as is son. Fourth, they also involve the current Haitian president and his opponent Mirlande Manigat in last year's presidential elections. Fifth, the case involves the recent resignation of Prime Minister Gary Conille. And sixth, they demonstrate an attempt to take economic advantage (illegally) of the disastrous Haitian earthquake, which sadly is not unique to this case.

So what is the case: Bautista for some time had been the target of attack by the opposition and their constant accusation of government corruption. Rumours had been spreading that there might be a Dominican angle to the resignation of Gary Conille as Prime Minister of Haiti in February this year. The reason was that Conille had started investigating 8 construction contracts worth $ 385 million that his predecessor Jean Max Bellerive had signed during the course of one day. An auditing committee declared that these contracts were illegal and damaging the Haitian nation, which made Connille start investigations (a move that finally got him removed). The companies that won these contracts were Dominican. For some time Nuria has linked these companies to Félix Bautista either directly, or through straw men (family members of Bautista). Bautista, however, has defended himself saying that it is not illegal to win contracts (in fact 69% of the $500 million the DR government has given for reconstruction in Haiti has gone to Bautista's companies), that all was ok and legal (referring to some vague statements by Conille that could lead to that conclusion). In fact Bautista last Thursday decided to explain himself in the Senate in order to make his defence public, and to get an arena where there would be no critical questions raised given the fact that PLD has 31 of 32 Senators. After his declaration the PLD and the Senate (much the same thing these days) defended Bautista's honour and said that he was the victim of the hardest and most unreasonable attacks that any politician had suffered in the Dominican history (PLD senators would not score very good in a history test of Dominican politics). And then the PLD published a full one page add in most Dominican newspapers whitewashing Bautista and the PLD and attacking the PRD (the title was The 17 lies from the PRD).

The next day, Friday, Bautista went to the Attorney (prosecutor) General (Procurador general in the DR), who is member of the PLD government, a PLD member and former lawyer of Félix Bautista, and asked the Attorney General to investigate the false accusations against him. A couple of days earlier the Attorney General, Radhamés Jiménez, had stated that the accusations were only rumours and speculations, and that he would not act upon them. It is important to remember that in the Dominican political system, the Attorney General is a politician and it has almost never happened that he has started serious investigations against one from his own party/government (see my assessment on horizontal accountability in the Dominican Republic here). If he tries, he would probably be removed or just leave when he sees that it is impossible to work against corruption as Attorney General (such as Hipólito Mejía's first Attorney General, Virgilio Bello Rosa, who resigned in 2002 on this account). The Attorney General has no independence or autonomy, and until relatively recently he was also powerless since the president had to sign off on any legal cases he would like prosecute on in court.

On the Saturday, Nuria threw the bomb. She accused Félix Bautista of two cases of crimes, and she presented hard evidence to substantiate the following: 1) Through the director of the state company INESPRE Ricardo Jacobo, the companies of Félix Bautista paid presidential candidate Michel Martelly more than 2.5 million USD cash, and the other principal candidate Mirlande Marnigat 250.000 USD. This is plain corruption in order to win state contracts in Haiti. However, this particular accusation is probably worse for Martelly than for Bautista, and the Haitian Congress has promised to investigate. 2) Nuria indirectly accuses Bautista for having enriched himself illegally. Pointing out that in the official declarations of his fortune in 1996 (when he became a government bureaucrat) and 2010 (when he became Senator), Bautista declared 547.000 DOP, and 16 million DOP (about 500.000 USD), respectively, and that now Bautista owns appartments in the capital of Santo Domingo worth more than 10 million USD (407 million DOP). Those 10 million USD do not include the value of any of his companies or bank accounts or other real estate. Showing documents of how his companies have won government construction contracts that Bautista himself signed when being head of OISOE, Nuria plainly says (and proves) that Bautista has become rich at the expense of Dominican taxpayers. Nuria also showed how Bautista pays millions of DOP to the PLD and high members of the party, which may come in handy now that he might come under official investigation for corruption.

The case is now officially under investigation in the DR. First of all since Bautista asked the Attorney general to investigate, but also because after Nuria's show there is evidence of corruption. The Attorney General, having this hot potatoe in his hands (either he becomes extremely unpopular with the newspaper-reading population, or he becomes extremely unpopular with his president and loses his job), sent the case to the Department of Anti-corruption, where I am quite confident that they are trying to do whatever they can to get rid of the case without further investigation. The government has remained silent on the issue, which is Leonel's constant tactics when one of his own is accused of corruption, but Nuria reports that government agents are searching high and low for the sources of her story. Nuria plainly says that if it is correct, as Bautista alleges, that the accusations are false, why are the authorities looking for the journalist's sources (and the original documents)?

So what consequences may this scandal have:
Let's first look at Haiti, then the DR.

The first accusation has already become an international scandal, and explains a long way PM Gary Conille's resignation in Haiti in February. Conille wanted to investigate the contracts given to Bautista's companies, Martelly did not, and Conille had to go. And now we have found a plausible explanation for why this was important for Martelly. This has become a headache for Martelly because it is incredibly difficult to find a PM that satisfies donors and the Haitian parliament, where Martelly himself has little support. Furthermore, Martelly definitely will lose goodwill in the donor community over this. And finally, he might actually be impeached for this. The Haitian Parliament has promised to investigate, and Martelly is already in trouble over the issue that he might hold US nationality as well (which would be illegal in Haiti), and he is meeting powerful demands to reinstate the army. This latest case might prove to become the tipping point against him (unless the international community saves him).

Former PM Bellerive who originally signed the contracts, also dragged Leonel into this saying that he had asked the Dominican president for advice on which companies to give the contracts to. Leonel naturally pointed to his friend's companies. Across the border it is now every man for himself. There is no reason to believe the former Haitian PM, who also may come under investigation here, but this scandal may, nevertheless, tarnish President Fernández's otherwise impeccable international image.

Leonel Fernández has managed the most marvellous feat to become extremely popular abroad and only mildly popular at home. Some reasons are that he is smart, knowledgeable, talks English perfectly and he is likeable. In addition, he has been relatively good at running the country. This Bautista case, however, puts in doubt all the good faith and altruistic motives the Fernández government might have had when they decided to construct a new University in Haiti and give 500 million USD for reconstruction. It looks bad for the president that most of these contracts are given to his closest ally, a person he has called his son. His image may also be tarnished even more if the case is not properly investigated, and given the fact that Bautista and Fernández are so close, his image could even become more damaged by a proper investigation.

Danilo Medina might also lose over this. Many now want to hear what Medina's take on this case is. Will he support Bautista? Or, will he criticise and distance himself from him? This is a lose-lose situation. If he supports Bautista, he might lose independent votes and some PLD votes (although maybe not too many given the fact that Mejía is feared by many due to his horrendous four year rule 2000-2004). This might be enough to lose a close election. Should he distance himself from Bautista, Medina might lose more. Bautista is the Organisational Secretary of the PLD, and contributes with millions of DOP to the party. Although still a controversial figure in the party (and for all we know the leaks may come from his own party, which we know is not uncommon in other countries in Latin America), the PLD (and the Senate in particular) has decided to support him. Even though this occurred before the latest evidence was presented, Medina might risk support in his own party if he distances himself from Bautista. And, what is worse, Bautista may pull the plug in San Juan, his home region. If Bautista says to his people not to vote (or to vote for Mejía), this may lose the election for Medina. Bautista does not risk much by doing this since he hold a position in the Senate until 2016 and with his kind of money I am sure he can make friends with Hipólito Mejía as well. Medina, I think, will remain silent and hope not to lose too many votes over this.

How about Bautista? What will happen to him? Well, Bautista is in a better position than Martelly, Fernández and Medina. First of all, he enjoys immunity as Senator until 2016. This may be lifted, but since 30 of the remaining 31 senators belong to his party (which he pays a lot of money) it is very doubtful it ever will be. So, even given a change in government in August 2012, and given the unlikely case that the new Mejía government will actually do something about this, it is not very likely to prosper. Second of all, he is already so rich that he is difficult to touch. Third, as everyone else, he will not go down silently and I am sure he can drag many down with him. That is enough to raise fears into all the three big parties. This case can in fact, end up with a president having to resign in Haiti for corruption, while the Dominican Senator who corrupted him may walk free and enjoy the benefits of a Dominican Congress member.

The positive note is maybe that 10 years ago a case like this would never have reached the media, and even though the DR is still one of the few countries where a scandal like this does not get any traction in the public, I sense that this case is getting some, but not enough, traction. The sad thing, however, is that there exists rich people many of which hereabout are elected politicians, who are willing to steal from the population that elected them and exploit the poorest of the poor that have survived one of the worst natural disasters ever in modern history.

Welcome to my blog

This is the first, short post in my newly created blog on Dominican politics, and in particular the Dominican 2012 presidential elections, which I will be following "on site" in Santo Domingo from now and until May 20.

I will try to sum up and analyse important events during the campaign and maybe also draw some lines between the current campaign and recent political history in the country.
Currently the election campaign is heating up and there are basically too many things going on for me to capture every detail. Some of the issues I do want to focus on in the days and weeks to come, however, are the candidates: Danilo Medina and Hipólito Mejía for the PLD (Partido de la Liberación Dominicana) and PRD (Partido de la Revolución Dominicana), respectively, who both ran as presidential candidates in 2000 when Mejía ; the party system and main political parties (PLD, PRD and the rests of the split PRSC); the scandals and more than anything else the corruption allegations; connected to this I hope to get time to write on the so-called Margaritagate which included allegations that the current First Lady and candidate for the Vice-Presidency for PLD, Margarita Cedeño, had a bank-account in Denmark with 43 million €; Felix Bautista, the strong-man, Leonel's protegé and friend, and PLD-senator who has been involved in corruption schemes earlier and now may be one of the reasons for the recent change of Prime Minister in Haiti; current President Leonel Fernández merits some words, already president for twelve years and younger than Balaguer was before he started his "doce años" in 1966; another very interesting topic is the war of the surveys in the campaign and how these are used by the candidates; the political party alliances and the minor parties; the father and son party FNP (Fuerza Nacional Progresista) that has supported the PLD since 1996 in a xenophobic alliance; and the message (or lack thereof) of the candidates in this campaign.

These are only some topics that I hope to start blogging about already tomorrow.

As a short intro I can say that the presidential elections for 2012 will be a battle between two candidates, PLD's Danilo Medina who picked the first lady Margarita Cedeño as his vice-presidential candidate, and PRD's Hipólito Mejía who picked Luis Abinader from a traditional PRD family as his vice-presidential candidate. It will be a very tight race and there are two uncertainties going on at the moment: Who will win? And, will there be a need for a second electoral round? In the DR there is a ballotage if the leading candidate does not obtain at least 50% of the votes in the first round. This rule was implemented for the 1996 presidential election, and this year was the only year that a second round was needed (Leonel Fernández beat José Francisco Peña Gómez, PRD, in the second round). In 2000 Hipólito Mejía was very close to reaching 50% of the votes in the first round, and after presidential candidate Balaguer, PRSC, had said there wouldn't be any need for a second round, Mejía was declared the winner. In the 2004 and 2008 Fernández obtained more than 50% of the votes in the first round in two-horse races against Hipólito Mejía and Miguel Vargas (PRD). Whether there will be a second round or not this time, depends on how many votes the minor parties can catch and the closeness of the race among the two main contenders. The PRSC this year has basically decided to retire its own party, now controlled by Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, and supports Medina in this race.


Up until recently my money would have been on Hipólito Mejía and the PRD. First because I think many are tired of the PLD rule and the great difference between Leonel's rhetoric and socio-economic realities. Second, sufficent new voters have been enrolled and sufficient older voters have forgotten that between 2000-2004 Hipólito Mejía most likely was the worst president (at least in economic terms) since the start of democracy in 1978. Three, Medina is not a very popular candidate outside the PLD-organisation. The last couple of months I have started slowly to change my mind since Margarita gives Medina access to state resources during the campaign, and she lets him get a hold on Leonel followers. This might be enough to get him elected. I think a Medina victory might be good for democracy in the country because it would weaken somewhat Leonel's hold on the PLD and open that party up, and the PRD might have to get some new and younger blood into the leadership of the party. A Mejía victory might be bad for the country if he rules like he did last time, and it would strengthen both Leonel and Mejía's position in their respective parties. On the other hand, a change in government after 8 years of PLD might be even more important for the country's democracy, but if this happens it is a bit sad that presidency will be handed over to a "devil we know" (to cite political scientist Javier Corrales).

Hopefully we will know on May 20 who wins, and then we will know if Hartlyn's hypothesis from his 1998 book that the tighter the election the higher risk for an electoral crisis, is correct. Although I hope that an electoral crisis will be avoided in this presumably tight election, I do think that the tighter the election result the more advantegous for the incumbent party. Luckily the Junta Central Electoral is a much more professional electoral organiser now than in 1994, although it seems somewhat more politicised (and PLD) dominated than before.