SANTO DOMINGO.- Public bickering among senior Government officials that have drawn the media’s attention in the last few weeks reveal president Leonel Fernandez’s lack of ability to exert discipline, just weeks after the inaugural of his second term.

Soon after the recent confrontation between Peravia senator Wilton Guerrero and Justice minister Radhamés Jiménez, whose assistants were accused of collaborating with drug traffickers in that province, the lawmaker also blamed Peravia Police commander general Hilario González and provincial governor Bienvenido Montero of “connivance” with the underworld, in the wake of the the murder of seven men whose bodies were found in Paya, Baní on August 5.

The flaps prompted the intervention of Fernandez’s ruling PLD party and led its general secretary and Senate president Reinaldo Pared to call on the parts to put an end to the controversy.

Guerrero - who insists on calling the investigation into the slayings a “whitwash,” alleging there were 1,200 kilos of cocaine and several million dollars in the place which have yet to turn up- was soon joined by La Vega senator Euclides Sanchez, who said judicial and police authorities conspire with narcotics traffickers and common thugs in his province.

The latest spat surfaced last week when Environment minister Jaime David Fernandez, after having accepted the post grudgingly and under alleged conditions, ignored the sale of lands around the Fortaleza San Luis, Santiago, by National Properties administrator Elías Wessin Chávez.

But Fernandez’s lack of ability to discipline underlings became notorious in his previous term in office when the then miniters of the Environment, Max Puig, and of Tourism, Felix Jimenez, waged a months-long battle over the potential development of the beach Bahia de las Aguilas in Jaragua National Park, and other protected areas.