NEW YORK.- The leading contender for Dominican Republic’s ruling PLD party presidential candidacy affirmed Sunday that despite the accomplishments of president Leonel Fernandez’s Administration and the country’s advances in the last few decades, a high number of Dominicans live a “damned” life, a situation he says will solve when he becomes the nation’s next president.

Danilo Medina said as many as 750,000 youngsters live in poverty, and when they can’t find a job, opt for a life of crime. He said they are forced to live in squalor and in houses built mostly on government lands.  “They must go out and burn tires to demand a solution to their grievances from the governments and mobilize to request the construction of a hospital, a school or a roof to live under.”

“That’s how damned is the life of a great amount of our compatriots who live in the Dominican Republic,” he said.

Medina, speaking in a rally organized by supporters in Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel, added that another large number of Dominican-Haitian youths is in the streets working in the worst conditions imaginable, selling everything from dogs to cell phones beneath traffic lights.