{"id":521698,"date":"2026-08-15T16:37:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T20:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/uncategorized\/santiago-matias-responds-to-leonel-we-dont-buy-parties-we-are-building-them\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T16:37:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T20:37:24","slug":"santiago-matias-responds-to-leonel-we-dont-buy-parties-we-are-building-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/dominican-news\/santiago-matias-responds-to-leonel-we-dont-buy-parties-we-are-building-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Santiago Mat\u00edas responds to Leonel: \u201cWe don\u2019t buy parties, we are building them\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Santo Domingo.<\/strong>\u2014 Communicator and businessman Santiago Mat\u00edas r<\/strong>esponded to former President Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez after the latter described his political foray as a communicational phenomenon and pointed out that building a political project requires, among other things, territorial strength, national organization, and a vision for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mat\u00edas reminded Fern\u00e1ndez<\/strong> that, after his departure from the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD)<\/strong> in 2019, he began using the structure of the then Dominican Workers’ Party (PTD)<\/strong>,<\/a> an organization that later changed its name to Fuerza del Pueblo.<\/strong> The name change was approved by the Central Electoral Board in December 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might be interested in: <\/strong>Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez considers Santiago Mat\u00edas a communicational phenomenon, but not a consolidated political project<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith all due respect, my friend president, upon your departure from the PLD you bought the Workers’ Party, PTD, in 2019 and then changed its name to The People’s Force\u201d<\/strong>, Mat\u00edas expressed in a message addressed to the former president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The content creator also maintained that, although it would have been easier for him to acquire an already existing political organization, he decided to take a different path and build his project from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis servant does not like shortcuts. I could buy a political party, that was the easiest thing, but the people want to leave behind the tricks of the old politics and we have decided to form Dominicanos Primero from scratch\u201d<\/strong>, he stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mat\u00edas also announced that he will continue working on building his political organization, with which he intends to participate in the electoral scene ahead of 2028. Recently, he filed the registration request for his political project with the Central Electoral Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The communicator also took advantage of his response to summon his followers to a Dominicanos Primero<\/strong> activity in Santiago, where he continues with the process of outreach and territorial organization of his project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mat\u00edas’ response comes at a time when the debate about his political possibilities is beginning to occupy more space on the Dominican stage. Fern\u00e1ndez has acknowledged his influence as a communicator, but has stated that the leap from a communication platform to a political organization requires structure and territorial presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santiago is no stranger to politics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The foray of Santiago Mat\u00edas, \u201cAlofoke,\u201d<\/strong> into Dominican politics is not recent. In July 2022, the businessman and communicator announced his aspirations for the senate of the Santo Domingo province and asserted that he had \u201cclear aspirations and ideas,\u201d although at that time he did not belong to any party. He even suggested that the organization that backed his candidacy could count on significant electoral support from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four years later, Mat\u00edas has taken a more ambitious step. On July 22, 2026<\/strong>, he announced that he decided to create his own political party with the aim of participating in the 2028 elections, ruling out the proposals that, as he stated, he received from more than 15 political organizations to assume a presidential candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his announcement, Mat\u00edas explained that the decision responds to the need to build an organization based on \u201cinnovative ideas and principles\u201d<\/strong>, with a vision for the future and leadership committed to leaving behind what he termed the \u201cold politics\u201d<\/strong>. He also informed that he will travel across the national territory to collect the necessary signatures and request the recognition of the new organization before the Central Electoral Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement came after weeks of discussion regarding the possibility of Mat\u00edas heading the presidential ticket for the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC)<\/strong>. The communicator himself had previously conditioned an eventual candidacy for that organization on changes within its ranks, but ultimately opted to promote his own political structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project still faces the challenge of transforming from a platform based primarily on its enormous capacity for digital communication and mobilization into a political organization with territorial structure, members, leaders, and national presence<\/strong>. An analysis published by Acento points out that Mat\u00edas would have to gather more than 87,000 signatures and build a national structure to achieve recognition from the JCE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Santo Domingo.\u2014 Communicator and businessman Santiago Mat\u00edas responded to former President Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez after the latter described his political foray as a communicational phenomenon and pointed out that building a political project requires, among other things, territorial strength, national organization, and a vision for the future. Mat\u00edas reminded Fern\u00e1ndez that, after his departure from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":521699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[40216],"tags":[711,2005],"class_list":["post-521698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dominican-news","tag-leonel-fernandez","tag-santiago-matias"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-2bIu","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2022-03-24-at-12.52.58-PM-1068x712-1.webp","dum_api":{"author_name":"Arelis Suero","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cropped-cropped-Diseno-sin-titulo-41-96x96.jpg","categories_name":["Dominican News"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2022-03-24-at-12.52.58-PM-1068x712-1.webp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}