Election costs big bucks

[NewsWhore]

The Central Electoral Board is applying for a RD$7.5 billion operational budget for 2008, of which RD$3 billion will be used to organize the 2008 presidential elections, as reported in Hoy. This is RD$6 billion more than was requested in 2004. The board said that this large sum is needed in case the elections aren't conclusive first time round and a second round has to be held. The increased budget will include funding for 120,000 voters abroad, an increase of one million voters for the 2008 elections, the 13,500 electoral colleges in the country and 250 abroad, and the equipment needed for staging the elections. Diario Libre writes that for the 2004 elections the JCE applied for RD$1.9 billion, but this sum was reduced to RD$50 million. The budget, which will be reviewed by the JCE board before being sent to the National Budget Office (ONAP), includes funding for the political parties, which is 0.5% of the national revenue in an election year. The JCE has been experiencing financial instabilities this year. They had applied for an RD$2.9 billion budget but were allocated RD$1.84 billion, which according to JCE board members wasn't enough. JCE president Julio Cesar Castanos Guzman said that the budget forced some JCE projects to be put on hold, as well as affecting the electoral process abroad. Due to a need for increased funds President Leonel Fernandez promised the JCE RD$200 million, of which RD$100 million was handed over yesterday.
The budget requested does not include the RD$1.1 billion that the government is bound by law to allocate to the political parties once the presidential campaign is officially launched in March. Also not included is the budget for the Chamber of Disputes, as reported by Diario Libre.
The JCE estimates that the number of voters in the DR has increased from 4.8 million in 2004 to 5.8 million in 2008.

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