Campaign Violence

Recently, Samantha Power, foreign policy assistant for Barak Obama, resigned from her position after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster” in an interview for the British media.

The lady, in criticizing herself, claimed that the word she used was unforgivable.

Her conduct was also condemned by the Democratic presidential candidate Obama.

In the last Rio Summit held in Santo Domingo, apart from the efficient participation of Leonel, one of the highlights was the intervention of Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico, whom after hearing such strong words in the gathering, asked his equals to avoid harm and accusations, to reach a better understanding.

His request was supported by everyone and, most importantly, respected.

And now we know the happy results.

The previous are two examples worth imitating, or at least admiring and noting.

It speaks a lot about the political conditions of their leaders.

As an overview, in politics, leaders should not permit or promote such that their followers offend the opposition and only in a respectful environment can they unite for a common will in order to reach healthy goals.

In the local arena, the electoral campaign has been characterized by verbal violence.

The offenses and inconsiderateness were the order of the day, even expressed through the media and political ads. In reality, some went overboard.

As it is natural, from raw verbal violence to physical violence, there is only one step.

It was a matter of time for the war to happen. Thus, the clash between “perreidistas” and “peleidistas” that recently occurred in Azua is not rare, which left various people wounded.

It is not our intention to establish responsibility, because each side blames the other and maybe both are right.

Also, if unfortunately those who died in campaign do not have mourners, the wounded will have even less.

If all these insults toward their opponents diminished, all these senseless fights would rarely happen.

If all the blabbermouths were sanctioned, peace would reign in the electoral campaigns.

It is time that our party leaders come together, seriously discuss, and commit themselves to carrying out a decent electoral campaign, so that no more “blood” is spilled.

And if they are unable to do it by themselves, they should seek help from well-known mediators, that, for all the criticism they get, are actually still necessary.