DOMINICAN TRANSITION #2: POLITICAL PARTIES RE-GROUP

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SANTO DOMINGO 003358

SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, WHA/PPC AND DRL;NSC FOR SHANNON AND
MADISON;LABOR FOR ILAB;TREASURY FOR OASIA-LAMONICA
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/07/2014
TAGS: PGOV PINR DR
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN TRANSITION #2: POLITICAL PARTIES RE-GROUP

REF: A. (A) SANTO DOMINGO 2968


B. (B) SANTO DOMINGO 3056

C. (C) SANTO DOMINGO 3313

Classified By: Economic and Political Counselor Michael Meigs for Reaso
n 1.5 (b) and (d).


1. (SBU) This is no. 2 in our series on the transition to a
new administration
in the Dominican Republic.

POLITICAL PARTIES RE-GROUP

(SBU) Following Leonel Fernandez's sweep of the May 16
presidential election, the three major political parties are
grappling with their futures -- the winning PLD to maintain
party unity and ensure "governability" with an
opposition-controlled Congress, and the losing PRD and PRSC
to restructure, forge an effective opposition, and organize
for better performance in the 2006 legislative and municipal
elections. The era of the strongmen is past, and the losers
will have to try to learn democracy in-house. PRSC strongman
Joaquin Balaguer died in 2002 and PRD statesman Jose
Francisco Pena Gomez in 1998, and a strict interpretation of
the Constitution might bar President Mejia from trying again.


PLD - In the catbird seat
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

(SBU) Leonel Fernandez's Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) is
united in anticipation of returning to power on August 16.
Rivalries among the party's political leaders subsided over
the past year as victory looked more and more certain.
Undaunted by his own loss in 2000, Danilo Medina served as
Leonel's campaign strategist and now co-chairs the transition
team. Medina strongly influences the party machinery.
Former Vice President (1996-2000) Jaime David Fernandez
Mirabal stayed in the shadows for most of the campaign, but
belatedly supported Leonel's candidacy. Fernandez Mirabal
has presidential aspirations and a significant following.
The President-elect will need to distribute cabinet and other
posts with an eye to keeping both of these players in his
court, while also keeping sweet the non-PLD figures who
backed him, notably former VP (1986-1994) Carlos Morales
Troncoso, former chief executive (1963-65) Donald Reid
Cabral, and former PRD president Hatuey De Camps.

(SBU) The PLD executive will have to work until at least 2006
with an opposition-dominated Congress. Of 32 senators, the
PLD has only one (the well-regarded Jose Tomas Perez) while
the PRD has 29 and the PRSC has 2. In the 150-member lower
house, the PLD with 42 deputies is better situated, but must
contend with a PRD plurality of 73 and a substantial PRSC
bloc of 35. The PLD will have to build coalitions to pass
urgently needed but politically unpalatable measures such as
the tax reform bill promised to the IMF. Doing so will put a
premium on centrist policies, wide consultation, and
transparent procedures in Congress.

PRD - Mejia still in control
- - - - -- - - - - - - - - -

(C) President Mejia's PRD, victorious in the 1998, 2000, and
2002 elections, is disappointed about its defeat. Despite
its astonishing mismanagement of the economy and the budget,
it still managed to score a third of the vote. Mejia remains
its preeminent personality; the PRD claims the most
grass-roots members of any party, and a majority of them
apparently voted for Mejia. He and his circle, the PPH
(Proyecto Presidencial Hipolito),controlled 70-80 percent of
the party machine going into the election. The electoral
defeat may have weakened his hold, but potential challengers
in the PRD are weaker still. He has promised to one of them,
Vice President and Secretary of Education Milagros
Ortiz-Bosch, the chair of a PRD convention in November to
restructure the party and select new leaders. Likely to go
is the aging interim PRD president, former Director of
Customs Vicente Sanchez Baret.
(SBU) An overhaul is long overdue; for the past 20 years the
structure has been directed from the top down, first by Pena
Gomez and then by Mejia. The nominating process from
November to January was confused not only by rivalries but
also by undertainty over the actual composition of the
long-dormant PRD national executive committee. Competing
candidates held committee meetings with widely different
lists of participants.

(C) Last year Ortiz-Bosch had a large following in and
outside the PRD and a reputation for principled behavior.
She lost her place in line because of her on-again, off-again
stance toward Mejia's re-election and her half-hearted, tardy
endorsement. By contrast, early rival former Secretary of
Tourism Rafael "Fello" Subervi recognized the inevitability
of Mejia and served as a strong, loud vice-presidential
candidate. With newly burnished party credentials, he has
resurrected his presidential aspirations - - but Fello's
sleazy reputation will hinder him in any future presidential
race.

(SBU) The telegenic Hatuey De Camps, removed as party
president in February for his stubborn and voluble opposition
to the President's re-election, endorsed Leonel Fernandez's
candidacy. He has never accepted his January removal as
secretary of the "partido blanco," and his followers have

SIPDIS
camped out in the PRD party headquarters building since then.
In the week after the May 16 election, Hatuey had himself
filmed by a press mob as he visited Pena Gomez's grave --
dressed in a white suit, carrying a white bouquet, with tears
in his eyes and a catch in his voice.

(SBU) A PRD national plenary May 23, attended by 1824
delegates of a list of 2240, expelled De Camps and four other
dissidents (including Congresswoman Felipa "Terremoto" Gomez,
who had led the occupation of the party HQ). The vote was
accompanied by a lengthy pandemonium in the hall, most of it
directed against Hatuey with cries of "out with the traitor!"
Defiant, on June 5 Hatuey told the press that the PPH-led
plenary could not remove him "by law or by force" and that
his followers would continue to deny access to the party
headquarters. The PRD leadership is asking the courts to
evict them. De Camps will challenge Mejia for control of the
PRD -- probably fruitlessly -- and then may found his own
minor party and chip out a 5 percent or so share of the PRD
base.

(U) Mejia has made it clear that he intends to stay deeply
involved in PRD politics. He dismissed the notion bruited by
some that he would get into the Senate via an arrangement
with a resigning incumbent PRD senator.

(SBU) The irony of Mejia's re-election attempt is that under
the terms of the very Constitutional amendment that allowed
him to run for re-election, he may now be barred from ever
running again. According to the relevant provision of Article
49, "The President of the Republic may seek a second, single
consecutive constitutional term, not being allowed afterwards
ever to seek the same office or that of the Vice Presidency
of the Republic." By undercutting Mejia's electoral future
(absent creative interpretation by the Supreme Court or yet
another constitutional amendment),this situation reduces
Mejia's hold on long-term leadership in the party to force of
personality and coherence of concept. The first he has; the
second he does not.

(U) A further irony: because of the 2002 amendment Leonel
Fernandez, who already served four years as president, will
have the option of seeking re-election in 2008.

PRSC - Life after Balaguer
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(SBU) For the PRSC, the issue is not restructuring but
survival. In its fifth successive electoral defeat, the
party saw its share of the vote slip to an all-time low. Many
Reformistas followed the lead of former Vice President
(1994-96) Jacinto Peynado and Morales Troncoso and defected
to non-PRSC candidates. Peynado is seriously, perhaps
terminally ill, undergoing medical treatment in Miami.
Morales Troncoso has come out of semi-retirement
ostentatiously to accompany the PLD transition team.
Defeated presidential candidate Estrella seems an unlikely
reformer.

(C) One thing is virtually certain: party president Rafael
Bello Andino, a relic from the "palace circle" of former
President Balaguer's last years, will be replaced for
resisting calls for change from the Reformista rank and file.

(C) The PRSC central executive directorate reviewed reform
proposals on June 3 and scheduled a national party assembly
for July 24 to "renew" the party and its officials.
Estrella, his senior campaign adviser Victor Gomez Berges,
and Federico "Quique" Antun Batlle -- an influential PRSC
chief who gave late support to Estrella's presidential bid --
are possibles to replace Bello Andino. Antun Batlle has told
us the convention could begin the party's "revival or
burial."

(U)The party's long-term decline began in 1996, when Balaguer
refused to support the Reformista candidate for president and
instead backed the PLD's Fernandez in the second round;
Fernandez once in office left the Reformistas out in the
cold. The aged Balaguer again abandoned his party in 2000
and threw his support to Mejia (PRD).

(C) To revive the party's fortunes, new leaders will need to
exorcise not only Balaguer's ghost, but also his legacy of
authoritarian, personalistic manipulation. Antun Batlle has
threatened privately to quit the party if it does not adopt
more competitive, participatory internal procedures; he would
then found a new movement designed to attract younger
Dominicans.


2. (U) Drafted by Bainbridge Cowell, Michael Meigs.


3. (U) This report and others in our election and transition
series can be read on the SIPRNET at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/ index.cfm along
with extensive other current material.
HERTELL