Former President of the Republic, Leonel Fernández, assured yesterday that President Luis Abinader is lying and incurring in an emotional outburst when he says that he supports the Nicolás Maduro regime, opposed getting vaccinated against Covid-19 and the elimination of the never ever from the 2010 Constitution.
In a statement sent to the media, Fernandez spoke of his role as observer of the electoral process on July 28 in Venezuela and the statement he issued at the conclusion of the process. In his opinion, this is the same thing that the Dominican government and other nations have requested.
“First of all, it is not true that I have made any criticism of his position regarding the case of Venezuela. As far as I am concerned, I participated in the presidential elections of Venezuela on July 28, as an international observer, as I had done on other occasions, not only in that sister South American country, but in other Latin American nations,” he said, pointing out that the head of state incurred in several inaccuracies and lack of veracity, which forces him to make clarifications.
“What the government of Luis Abinader and other governments in the region have demanded has been nothing more than what we had initially formulated in our results report in Venezuela,” he emphasized, saying that he has incurred in a lie when he says that he has proceeded to support the Venezuelan government, and Abinader, to support democracy.
The former president said he better understood the “media campaign” that the government and the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) mounted against him for the electoral observation efforts he was carrying out.
He denied having refused to take the second dose of the Covid vaccine, as the head of state had stated in the Semanal with the press. He clarified that what he opposed was the third dose, and not because of a desire to oppose, without any justification, but because it had not been endorsed by the World Health Organization.
“My opposition was to the third vaccination; and this, not out of whim, but because I agreed with the criteria of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), that for the use of the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Sinovac, Pfizer and BioNTech, and by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, to date (June 28, 2021) there was no scientific evidence on whether it was necessary to apply one or more booster doses of these vaccines after completing the current schedule of two doses for each one and the time in which they should be applied,” he stressed.
He said that it was an adventure to put the health of the Dominican people at risk, perhaps only to cover up an excessive purchase of vaccines and syringes that I am sure time will help to clarify.
He emphasized that it is not true that the “never again” rule for presidential reelection was eliminated in the 2010 reform, but rather in the 2015 reform.
“You couldn’t eliminate what didn’t exist. If President Abinader had investigated this aspect of recent Dominican constitutional history more carefully, he would not have incurred the emotional outburst that he did,” he responded.
He said he was surprised to see that the bill sent to the Senate of the Republic states that the purpose of the reform, in section b, refers to consolidating the constitutional autonomy of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and specializing its functions, for which he asks: Is it possible to consolidate and reinforce what does not exist?
He says that Abinader manipulated figures
He reiterated yesterday that the constitutional reform proposed by the president is unnecessary and that the reasons behind it are “vanity, ignorance or a hidden agenda.”
During a morning press conference, Fernández said that in his speech, the president manipulated data, exaggerated achievements and offered new promises, ignoring those that have not been fulfilled.
“With a statistical rebound, the growth in the years 2021, 2022, and 2023 was 12.3%, 4.9%, and 2.4%, respectively, for an average of 6.5%. Without a statistical rebound, it was 4.7%, 4.9%, and 2.4% in the same years, resulting in an average of 4%, if the months of the year 2020 of the 2020-2024 government period are not included,” the former president explained.
He said that the president’s statements about the forecasts of international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund place growth for this year at 5.4%, much higher than the 1.9% projected in the region. In that sense, the opposition leader said that last year, growth projections for 2023 were 5%, which “for four years, the Dominican Republic has lost leadership in the region.”
