Santo Domingo.- The head of the ruling PLD party’s Electoral Commission revealed Thursday that the political organization drafted a list of its members who seek candidacies to congressional and municipal posts, and sent it to all law enforcement agencies for vetting.

Alejandrina German said in this manner the PLD seeks to prevent people whom may have some link to drug trafficking or other illicit activity from being validated as candidates for next year’s midterm elections.

She said the PLD already received a first list where some of the people which were sent for a backroung check, and which she didn’t identify, figure with a police record. She noted however that these records can be the result of traffic accidents or other minor infraction, for which the investigation was widened.

“In those cases we instructed to widen each of those issues which had been sent to us and we already received it. We’re going to meet to study it carefully and if there’s a case in which some pre-candidate has some impediment keeping them from taking part, because we’ll simply call them and tell them that their pre-candidacy is repealed and to follow the procedures established by law,” she said.

Interviewed in the program Hoy Mismo, the also member of the PLD’s Political Committee said her party began the cleanup of its lists of potential candidates long before Ethics Commission president Marino Vinicio Castillo’s warning that if the Electoral Board (JCE) and the political parties don’t jointly evaluate the pre-candidates to uncover criminal links, the country may suffer a tragedy.