Extraordinary elections to cost RD$1.58 billion
The staging of the rescheduled municipal elections on Sunday, 15 March 2020 is said to cost Dominican taxpayers RD$1,578 million, according to the budget approved for the event by the Budget Agency. The Medina administration has said that RD$753 million will be available for distribution to political parties participating in the event.
As reported in El Dia, the elections have cost the government more than RD$4 billion, of which RD$1,008 million were allocated to purchase the now discard e-voting devices.
Public Health Minister Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas explained that the extraordinary municipal election scheduled for Sunday, 15 March 2020 would not be compromised by the Covid-19 virus because so far there has been no community spread in the country. The Health Minister maintains that the country’s first six confirmed cases have all been imported.
The Citizen Participation (Participación Ciudadana – PC) civic movement announced on Tuesday, 10 March 2020, that it will deploy more than 2,600 election observers during the extraordinary municipal elections to be held on 15 March. The election is the same that was aborted on 16 February after the e-voting machines did not upload the opposition ballots correctly. The number of observers is 30% more than the 1,800 accredited observers that had been approved for the earlier election.
Sonia Diaz Inoa, the general coordinator for PC, said that the observers will be stationed at the 158 Municipal Electoral Boards. She said the observers will be divided into those that will be mobile, observing the election day in different voting places and in the streets, and those that will oversee the opening of the voting tables to the transmission of the vote in one of the voting centers.
She said that democracy and transparency of the process depend on each and every citizen.
A digital platform, https://atentocontuvoto.org/ enables citizens to report any irregularities on election day. The platform provides a georeferenced map for reporting irregularities and crimes during the campaign days and on the election day. It enables the posting of photographs, videos or audios.
PC also encourages people to send cases of irregularities and more on the election to them at delitoelectoral@pciudadana.org or the WhatsApp 809-764-4952.
“These tools are for each citizen to commit to being a guardian of our weak democracy so that we do not remain silent if we witness any electoral crime or offense and report it,” she said. The new facilities are enabling the organization to gather evidence on political patronage and motivate the state to undertake its responsibility to combat this practice.
“Democracy is built by all of us, and the transparency of the process depends on each and every one of us. This tool is for each citizen to commit to being a guardian of our weak democracy so that we do not remain silent if we witness any electoral crime or offense and report it,” she said.
https://z101digital.com/participacio…s-municipales/
Source: DR1, z101digital
Mar 12, 2020
Category: DR News |