HOLY SUNDAY.— The legal secretary and member of the Political Committee of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), José Dantés, rejected tonight the statements of the president of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), José Ignacio Palizawho attributed recent cases of drug trafficking in politics to institutional strengthening and the independence of the Public Ministry.
According to Dantés, the proliferation of cases and extraditions in the current government is due to the fact that “the PRM filled its ballot with people linked to drug trafficking.”
“No, Mr. Paliza. If today we see ‘names that we did not imagine’ it is not because the country changed: it is because the PRM filled its ballot with people linked to drug trafficking. That is the difference,” Dantés published on his social networks.
The PLD leader criticized the ruling party’s justification, pointing out that “more than a dozen cases, scandals and extraditions come from the PRM, not from the system or from other parties. From you.”
He described it as an admission on the part of Paliza to say that “they are outraged” because some “accessed their organization,” insisting that “it was not infiltration, it was admission. It was not carelessness, it was connivance.”
Dantés recalled that in 2021 the PLD proposed discussing the issue in the National Dialogue, but “the PRM refused.”
He questioned the effectiveness of the current suspensions of those involved, asking: “who approved them and promoted them on the ballot; who appointed them?”
The PLD leader stressed that the PRM should not try to “distribute blame.” He emphasized that “this burial is exclusive to the PRM. If anything changed, it was that the drug traffickers stopped hiding: the PRM nominated them.”
What Paliza said
The president of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) and Minister of the Presidency, José Ignacio Paliza, stated that recent cases related to drug trafficking should not be interpreted as an institutional deterioration, but as evidence that in the Dominican Republic “the law finally acts without asking permission, without looking at colors and without stopping before any power.”
Paliza recognized the citizen indignation and expressed that he himself shares that feeling “as a Dominican, as a public servant and as president of a political party.”
The official highlighted that if today the population knows names, advanced files, active processes and multiple extraditions, it is precisely because the country has changed. He explained that this transformation is the result of the work of a truly independent Public Ministry, strengthened institutions and a president Luis Abinader who has decided not to intervene in justice.
He regretted that in the past, those who should have prevented the infiltration of the underworld into the social structures of the country did not fulfill their responsibility.
Internal measures: more filters, more rigor and zero tolerance
As for the party, Paliza announced that the organization has categorically suspended and expelled all people formally linked to investigations for illicit activities, who must respond to justice.
In addition, he reported that reinforced internal audits will be carried out for the entire party registry; Complete files of leaders and activists will be reviewed; and the modification of Law 155-17 will be proposed to the National Congress, to convert political parties into obligated subjects within the anti-money laundering system.
