Weekly Report - 18 May 2004

Right up to two days before the election, President Hipólito Mejí­a seemed on the brink of interfering with the results, threatening to put the electoral authority in charge of all media reporting of the event, so as to prevent the propagation of `false information'. The true situation, he insisted, was that he had moved ahead of his rival Leonel Fernández. Come the day, he did not even wait for the official count before conceding that he had been roundly defeated.