The political campaign of Laurentino Nito Cortizo, presidential candidate of the PRD, went through the questioning of the ads on Google , which invited to look for his name when writing another candidate’s. Ricardo Laviery, director of communications for the campaign, said it is “a common marketing technique.” His adversaries talk about cheating.

First campaign skirmishes

With an open letter to seek the votes, the presidential candidates began to show their claws. It had not been 12 hours before the electoral ban was lifted, when the first campaign skirmishes arose.

Criticism rested on the political campaign of Laurentino Nito Cortizo, champion of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), for an advertisement paid on Google.

This warning appeared when searching for the names of other candidates. Immediately the phrase arose: “Better Nito Cortizo”.

The ads acquired more rotation and controversy when independents Ricardo Lombana and Ana Matilde Gómez recriminated the strategy of their adversary.

Lombana spoke of “trap”, and Gómez called to “respect the Digital Ethical Pact “.

Defend themselves

But what did the Nito Cortizo campaign say? Ricardo Laviery, communications director of that political maneuver, defended the ads, labeling them as something “perfectly normal”. He put them in the category of common marketing technique. “If you put Rent-a-car [on Google], the competition will also come out, because it’s about testing proposals, and if there’s something that is a proposal contrast, it’s a choice,” he argued.

However, yesterday afternoon Cortizo ads were not available.

However, for some the strategy of the PRD is the beginning of the arrival of the dirty campaign to the political arena heading to May 5.

Who is right? Article 235 of the Electoral Code defines a dirty campaign as one that “offends human dignity” through “insults, incursions into private life, discrimination and assertions of illegal conduct.”

The PRD insists that ads paid on Google do not fit this description.