NewsWhore
02-13-2008, 02:20 PM
The Central Electoral Board failed in its attempt to get the political contenders to agree on guidelines aimed at curtailing the offensive tone and content of this year's presidential election campaign. President Leonel Fernandez, who is also president of the PLD party, did not attend, and PRSC and PRD party representatives walked out. The meeting was not without its lighter side, as noted by Diario Libre's sidebar note known as "The Spy." According to that observer, several of the political delegates fell asleep during the long peroration by JCE chief magistrate Julio Cesar Castanos Guzman. In fact, one of the magistrates was so deeply asleep that when the obligatory applause came at the end of the speech, the sleepy magistrate stood up as if to leave the session. Castanos' speech was aimed at lowering the pitch of much of the current political propaganda now on the airwaves, and to substitute them with "objective proposals aimed at the nation's development."
PRSC president Federico Antun Batlle was the first to address the room after the initial speech, and he wasted no time in blasting current President Fernandez, saying that it was he who was "disrupting" the campaign. Antun said that the PRSC was not the target for the JCE's exhortations, since it had done nothing wrong. Antun went on to say that if this was an "organized society, there would be no need for such a meeting, since the law would take care of everything, and a lot of people would be in jail or would not be candidates."
Ramon Alburquerque, the PRD representative, told the magistrates that while he congratulated the JCE on its efforts to organize the process, it would have a hard time faced with "a despotic, authoritarian and hegemonic government that makes excessive use of state resources without any restraint; let the ones who feel guilty stay here". He then walked out of the meeting.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#10)
PRSC president Federico Antun Batlle was the first to address the room after the initial speech, and he wasted no time in blasting current President Fernandez, saying that it was he who was "disrupting" the campaign. Antun said that the PRSC was not the target for the JCE's exhortations, since it had done nothing wrong. Antun went on to say that if this was an "organized society, there would be no need for such a meeting, since the law would take care of everything, and a lot of people would be in jail or would not be candidates."
Ramon Alburquerque, the PRD representative, told the magistrates that while he congratulated the JCE on its efforts to organize the process, it would have a hard time faced with "a despotic, authoritarian and hegemonic government that makes excessive use of state resources without any restraint; let the ones who feel guilty stay here". He then walked out of the meeting.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#10)