In Dominican politics, we have reached an admirable level of sophistication: it is no longer enough to be transparent; now one must also produce transparency, illuminate it correctly, set up cameras, broadcast it via streaming and, of course, ensure that no one gets too close to ask uncomfortable questions.
This Monday marks the launch of “LA Agenda Semanal”, the new communication format from President Luis Abinader. The Presidency presents it as a window for citizens to observe how the president oversees projects, reviews indicators, identifies obstacles, listens to officials, and makes decisions. A sort of government engine room open to the public.
A magnificent window.
With the small detail that the press will have to watch from the outside.
According to the President’s Press Office, journalists will not have in-person access to the new space. The meeting will operate on a closed circuit, while the media will be able to send questions in advance or ask them during the broadcast. The person who will lead the conversation and ask the officials questions will be the president himself.
In other words: we have gone from “LA Semanal con la Prensa” to a weekly without the press.
The change seems small in name, but enormous in philosophy.
For more than two years, the old format placed the leader in front of journalists who, with varying degrees of success, could ask questions directly after the government presentation. That space ended in December 2025. Now it returns transformed into a televised executive meeting where the President will ask his own officials questions and subsequently the Government will send a report on what was discussed to the media.
Communicational evolution is fascinating.
Before, the Government used to answer questions.
Now the Government will ask itself the questions.
And then he will tell us the answers.
You don’t have to be a disciple of Machiavelli to discover the advantage of the method.
Because it is one thing to ask the Minister of Education how the start of the school year is going when you already know the answer you want to get, and it is quite another for a journalist to ask about that school that is not yet ready, about the questioned contract, about the budget that did not add up, or about the promise that remained sightseeing between public offices.
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That is precisely the uncomfortable function of the press.
A journalist is not there to help the official show off.
It’s there to ruin your PowerPoint.
The Government maintains that it remains interested in being accountable and that the media will be able to submit questions. That explanation deserves to be acknowledged: this is not an information blackout or a clandestine broadcast. There will be cameras, radio and television broadcasting, social media, and streaming.
But government information and accountability are not exactly the same.
The first one consists of the power explaining what it wants to explain.
The second one begins precisely when someone can ask you about that which you would prefer not to explain.
That is why it is paradoxical that the new format is announced as a way to bring public management closer to the citizenry while placing a prudent distance between that management and those who professionally have the task of questioning it.
It is like inaugurating a glass house and forbidding entry because they might dirty the windows.
The Presidency explains that every Monday we will see the president reviewing results, identifying difficulties, and coordinating solutions with ministers and directors. Perfect. It may even be useful to observe how a government meeting works.
The problem arises when such an exercise intends to occupy the symbolic space that previously corresponded to the exchange with the press.
A televised work meeting can be transparency.
A conversation between officials can be governmental pedagogy.
A president questioning his ministers can even produce interesting moments.
But none of those things replace the democratic value of a question asked by someone who does not belong to the script.
Because the true test of power has never consisted of correctly answering the questions chosen by the examinee.
In the Dominican Republic we should know that movie well enough.
Here, all governments, regardless of colors or slogans, eventually discover at some point the wonders of carefully managed communication. At first, openness is celebrated. Then the filters arrive. Later, the formats appear. Finally, someone decides that democracy works much better when questions arrive neatly organized by email.
And so, little by little, the citizen stops witnessing an accountability report and begins to contemplate an audiovisual production about accountability.
It is not the same.
Even if it has better lighting.
The new space could demonstrate that the Government has results to show and officials capable of responding. Hopefully. Precisely for that reason, it should withstand the questions it does not control.
Because when a power is sufficiently sure of its answers, it rarely needs to choose who holds the microphone.
Transparency is not just about opening a window.
It consists, above all, in not deciding from within what someone who is on the outside can look at.
