SANTO DOMINGO.- In addition to the topic of the budget for 2008, president Leonel Fernandez’s administration and the opposition center their political confrontation in the caused disaster from the storm Olga and in the former’s handling of the emergency.

Carlos Gabriel Garcia, the opposition PRD party’s campaign communications director, said that this is a government without authority, where each official does "does what they please, knowing beforehand that nobody in the administration will hold them accountable for their performance."

He said that "lackof authority" is shown with the tragedy in Santiago and the northwest provinces, "with the imprudence of the officials who once again hastily opened the Tavera dam’s floodgates, causing dozens of dead, thousands of evacuees and millions in material losses."

To counter that, Paíno Abréu, a senior member of the ruling PLD party said the opposition isn’t going to profit from the "the manipulative politicking" with the storms Noel and Olga, because the population is seeing the government’s “total resolve" in that organization’s handling to mitigate the damages. He said the PLD as well as its president and candidate are concentrated in making sure everything will come out well and have orders to join the relief effort.