SANTO DOMINGO.- Abstention in next week’s presidential elections will be 27 percent more than in 2004 and Dominican voters will be forced to elect the “least worse,” affirmed the political analyst Pedro Catrain yesterday.

"Abstention will increase in this process. There is a tendency, marked by skepticism, the lack of hope, the absence of proposals and the nature of the candidates."

If fewer citizens go to the ballot boxes loss, the votes a candidate needs to win in the first round will be less than 2,075,181 votes, or 50 percent plus one, in the event the proportion of 72 percent of the valid votes remains.

There are 5,764,387 registered voters, with 72 percent equaling 4,150,359 and half plus one equals 2,075,181.

In 1996 the proportion of valid votes was 77.6 percent; 75.1 percent in 2000 and 72 percent in 2004, a slide Catrain says will widen on May 16,

As to the country’s traditional political groups, Catrain says "we’re faced with three bad options."

"The process to choose the least of the worse was exhausted because in 2000 the vote was for Hipólito (Mejia) to get rid of Leonel (Fernandez) and in 2004 it was for Leonel to get rid of Hipólito," he said in an interview televised by CDN.

The political analyst said the current options don’t guarantee any type of change for society. “There’s a very skeptical electorate, which means abstention will increase.”