NO voy a firmar, ESO no es ÉTICO, scroll the Spanish subtitles along the bottom of a relatively cheesy ad that plays—and that we the captive audience watch—over and over again in the metro. The ad displays a man who is the CEO of a business in a conference room where he is asked to sign a corrupt contract with another company. The heads of the company tell him that signing this contract will make him rich, and if he doesn’t sign, they will simply conduct the same contract with another business. However, our virtuous CEO decides to make the ethical decision not to sign the contract. The next scene shows him celebrating his decision with his wife and two kids, then cuts to a white screen that says For a Transparent DR.
One thing that I have come to notice while being here, especially with the upcoming presidential elections that will take place in May, is Dominicans’ relative lack of confidence in their government. I have seen many cars zoom by with Yo no voto, todos son ladrones written across their back windows. As one presidential candidate was seen publicly visiting los campos on the national news, my friend’s host mom told her that that was the first time he had ever visited the rural areas of the Dominican Republic. A main cause of this lack of confidence comes from the copious amount of corruption that is associated with government and politics in this country.
Yesterday, thanks to the invitation of one of my Dominican friends, I attended una fiesta por la democracia, a celebration of democracy. The celebration included speakers who passionately argued for Dominicans’ right to government transparency and musicians who sang and busted anti-corruption beats. One of the main points of the event was to call into question the corruption of the incumbent president, Danilo Medina, who is running for reelection and whose campaign may be associated with dirty money linked to Joao Santana and the corruption scandal currently happening in Brazil. Speakers called upon the Dominican people, no matter what political party they support, to come together and demand transparency from their elected officials. They asked their fellow Dominicans to take to social media to spread the word and demand accountability: something that they feel has not been adequately covered in the mainstream media.
The organization that hosted the event, Somos Pueblo, has the ultimate aim of empowering the Dominican people and exposing injustice. While the right to vote could be a powerful tool that would show politicians that Dominicans will not stand for corruption, many Dominicans do not have enough confidence in its efficacy to utilize it. For politicians to be held accountable and for political change to occur, the people will have to demand it. Somos pueblo. We are the people. We have a voice. We have the power to change our society. This is the message that more and more Dominicans are coming to adopt. It will be interesting to see how anti-corruption efforts will affect the Medina administration in the upcoming elections and the wider political scene in the Dominican Republic in the near future.
Peace.Love.SomosPueblo
