NewsWhore
08-22-2006, 07:20 PM
Writing in Hoy newspaper, journalist Juan Bolivar Diaz analyzes the challenges ahead for the government. He points out that now that the Fernandez government controls the executive and legislative branches, the opportunity is there for major institutional and social changes to be carried out. He points out that the principal challenges are the scant transparency in government, improving income distribution and developing capacity to establish an alliance with civil society. "With a majority in the two legislative houses, and an Executive Branch, with high popular acceptance, the PLD has many possibilities to strengthen itself as a dominant political force if it avoids the temptation of short-termism and governs with a focus on the long term. He mentions the difficulties currently being experienced by the opposition, and their internal problems.
He points to a bundle of reforms, many requirements of the DR-CAFTA agreement, such as the creation of the ministry of planning and development and treasury, and government areas in charge of arbitration, promoting competitiveness, planning and public investment, internal controls, and new laws to regulate the budget and the controllers office, as base for transparency and policies to reduce corruption. Likewise, there is a law to make political parties accountable, and fulfillment of laws in favor of social security, an ombudsman, and consumer protection. "This legislative agenda is making a priority of Constitutional reform, in which the government appears to have been given priority," he writes.
He says the challenge facing Reinaldo Pared Perez as president of the Senate and Julio Cesar Valentin as president of the Chamber of Deputies is to clean the image of those institutions, which are currently among the least trusted by the public, according to a recent Gallup poll.
He writes that the present government's insistence to finish the metro before the 2008 election, which calls for a reduction in priority investments, and not confronting with fairness the Central Bank deficit while the country is penalized by the high price of petroleum and a larger external debt for the next two years could revert the main achievement the government has had, which is macroeconomic stability.
"Certainly, there is the risk that the government will overestimate the opposition parties' weaknesses and forget that the government's popularity can evaporate rapidly, as has happened in the past decades in Latin America where democratic re-elections can be counted on the fingers of one hand," comments Diaz.
http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=85904
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#4)
He points to a bundle of reforms, many requirements of the DR-CAFTA agreement, such as the creation of the ministry of planning and development and treasury, and government areas in charge of arbitration, promoting competitiveness, planning and public investment, internal controls, and new laws to regulate the budget and the controllers office, as base for transparency and policies to reduce corruption. Likewise, there is a law to make political parties accountable, and fulfillment of laws in favor of social security, an ombudsman, and consumer protection. "This legislative agenda is making a priority of Constitutional reform, in which the government appears to have been given priority," he writes.
He says the challenge facing Reinaldo Pared Perez as president of the Senate and Julio Cesar Valentin as president of the Chamber of Deputies is to clean the image of those institutions, which are currently among the least trusted by the public, according to a recent Gallup poll.
He writes that the present government's insistence to finish the metro before the 2008 election, which calls for a reduction in priority investments, and not confronting with fairness the Central Bank deficit while the country is penalized by the high price of petroleum and a larger external debt for the next two years could revert the main achievement the government has had, which is macroeconomic stability.
"Certainly, there is the risk that the government will overestimate the opposition parties' weaknesses and forget that the government's popularity can evaporate rapidly, as has happened in the past decades in Latin America where democratic re-elections can be counted on the fingers of one hand," comments Diaz.
http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=85904
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#4)