Dominican Cardinal questions fear of overseers
May 09, 2006
Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez last night questioned the fear that exists that a pursuit commission supervise the next elections, stressing that "it is not necessary to go very far because in the last elections if it were not for a pursuit commission we would’ve been swamped in a bad way."
(Dominican Today, May, 5 2006) SANTO DOMINGO. - "I don’t know why there is so much fear of a pursuit commission, why so much fear; something that we have done already, I participated in one twenty years ago, that is to say that it is not to supplant the judges of the (Electoral) Board, it is to help it in the credibility. It is not necessary to go very far, because in the last elections if it were not for a pursuit commission we would’ve been swamped in a bad way, he said”.
He said that if a pursuit commission is needed to obtain transparency, then it must be formed, even if some do not want it.
Regarding the latest denunciations of displaced voters, Lopez Rodriguez stated that the Electoral Board has the historic responsibility of guaranteeing to the Dominican voters that the elections are going to be staged with transparency.
He said that the problem is that the JCE needs to be absolutely reliable, "for everybody, all the political parties and to have a group of serious men and women and independent of any political party."
He lamented that in the country those incidents of displacements and other "pranks" always occur.
The archbishop of Santo Domingo made his statements in a mass to mark the 40th anniversary of the National University Pedro Henríquez Ureña (UNPHU).
Dominican Cardinal questions fear of overseers