DOMINICAN POLITICS #32: PLD'S LONG CONGRESS MOVES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SANTO DOMINGO 003434

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV DR
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN POLITICS #32: PLD'S LONG CONGRESS MOVES
INTO END-GAME

REF: SANTO DOMINGO 3228


1. (SBU) This is #32 in our series of political reports on
Leonel Fernandez's first year in office.

PLD's Long Congress Moves Into End-Game

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Though founder Juan Bosch is dead and gone, the Partido de
Liberacion Dominicana of President Fernandez retains the
Marxist structure that Bosch gave to it, with "democratic
centralism" as its credo. The PLD is now in the final phase
of its seventh "Ordinary Congress," a six-week series of
party conclaves that began on May 23 with a televised meeting
of 3000 delegates at a Santo Domingo hotel, including all but
one of the 21 members of the "Political Committee" presided
by Fernandez. In his opening remarks, Fernandez likened the
party to an army and to a church, where discipline must
prevail and each must do his part. "If anyone should
contravene the party regulations -- including myself -- that
person should be subject to party discipline." The appeal to
unity and ideology helps tone down competition among party
leaders and gives an impression of orderly procedure,
contrasting with noisy squabbles in the opposition PRD and
PRSC, whose internal elections have been marred by cries of
foul play and repeated postponements.

Wider internal democracy
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As the PLD prepared to elect its own leaders, it paused June
30 to commemorate the 96th birthday of its departed founder,
Juan Bosch. Newly adopted voting procedures will empower
rank-and-file PLD members to an unprecedented degree. The
congress will culminate July 3 with a first in the party's
32-year history: a direct, universal vote to select most of
the members of the "Central Committee," which will be
expanded from 300 to 394, including 100 to be elected
nationally and 235 to be elected from specific localities and
expatriate communities. More than 1800 candidates have
registered. In another first, candidates for this ruling
body are campaigning openly in the streets and the media.
Once the new Central Committee is in place, probably in late
July, Committee members will elect the party president and
secretary general for four-year terms. Subsequently,

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lower-level officials will be elected. The PLD will thus
follow the opposition PRD, which just finished what was
billed as its most democratic internal election (reftel),and
will parallel a similar process in the third-ranked PRSC.

The Seventh PLD Ordinary Congress, named in honor of deceased
party leader Rafael Kasse Acta, has already amended the party
statutes to take account of the realities of party growth and
the needs for administering the government. In dirigiste
fashion, the PLD Secretariat formulated the admendments and
submitted them to the congress; a plenary of some 2500
delegates, held in the Olympic Stadium in Santo Domingo on
June 12, approved most of the changes by acclamation.
Controversial points included further differentiation between
"members" and "militants" of the party, categories that first
appeared in the statutes in 2001 when the PLD decided to
transform itself from an elite of 33,000 (up from 16,000 in
1996) to a party of the masses which now claims 1.1 million
adherents. In another move that provoked grumbles about
re-centralization, a revision to the statutes gave the
Central Committee the power to select the party's candidate
for president of the Dominican Republic.

The PLD statutes had previously prohibited members of the
Political Committee, other than the President (Fernandez) and
the Secretary General (Reynaldo Pared Perez) from assuming
non-elected functions in government. Fernandez found this to
be impractical when constituting his cabinet last summer, so
the statute was quickly altered via a party plebiscite,
results of which were incorporated into the statutes just
approved by the congress. Nine of Fernandez's cabinet level
appointments came from the Political Committee: Danilo Medina
as presidential Chief of Staff, Alejandrina German as
Secretary of Education, Cesar Pino Torribio as presidential

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Legal Counsel, Euclides Gutierrez as Minister without
Portfolio, Felix "Felucho" Jimenez as Secretary of Tourism,
Francisco Javier Garcia as Secretary of Industry and
Commerce, Franklin Almeyda as Secretary of the Interior and
Police, Temistocles Montas as Technical Secretary of the
Presidency, and Ramon "Monchy" Fadul as Secretary of Labor.

Grumblings
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Dissidents were heard, if not heeded. The Central Committee,
which meets at least annually in January, did not receive a
version of the proposals to debate. This infuriated the
PLD's controversial Luis Inchausti, who in late 2004 became
the vigorous spokesman for those PLD members who had failed
to benefit from the spoils by receiving government jobs.
Inchausti in late May circulated his own "proposed revised
version" of the Secretariat,s text and exhorted members to
resist directions to vote "for lists of candidates handed
down by the central authorities." Senator Jose Tomas Perez,
the only legislator on the PLD,s Political Committee,
defended Inchausti,s approach. He challenged Franklin
Almeyda,s comment that the Inchausti document should have
been presented to the Central Committee: "And when was that
possible?" Senator Perez stressed that the party structures
should be open and sympathetic to initiatives from the base.
"Only the Conclave of Cardinals in Rome has the right to
absolute control, because it was designed that way by God
himself to elect the Pope." PLD legislator Minou Tavarez
Mirabal, daughter of one of the fabled Mirabal sisters who
opposed Trujillo, denounced a "nasty aftertaste of
authoritarianism" in the party.

It has been evident during the congress that President
Fernandez and PLD boss Danilo Medina still control a critical
mass of the party, even as others dissent. The press
reported that Senator Perez appeared less than enthusiastic
in his applause for Fernandez and others at the opening; and
when Fernandez mentioned the "29 senators" of the opposition
PRD, someone shouted out "30!" to imply that Perez was
politically suspect. Current Secretary General Pared Perez,
backed by Medina, seems likely to be reelected, and his only
serious challenger -- PLD secretary of legal affairs Rhadames
Jimenez -- is close to Fernandez. As president of the
republic, Fernandez is unopposed for reelection as party
president. Medina has deferred his longstanding rivalry with
Fernandez for the nation's top post.

Balance of Power
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The balance of power in the PLD remains much as it was in
February, when a retired political figure with long
experience in the PLD commented to us that Danilo Medina has
40-45 percent of PLD members' support. Senator Perez has
10-15 percent and Luis Inchausti 10 percent or less. Former
Vice President Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal and Franklin
Almeyda -- two with clout in the past -- retain "almost
none." Fernandez commands allegiance as the party's top
vote-getter, but relies on associates such as Medina and
Temistocles Montas to run the party.

Considering that the PLD is sitting secure, given the
turnaround in the economy and a level of confidence that
prompts businesses to invest in Central Bank certificates of
deposit instead of buying dollars, the party will be able to
negotiate its way through these and other conflicts.

Fernandez himself will probably not deal with the party
controversies, however, just as he has abstained from
intervening very much in his own administration. The party's
sycophantic account of his opening speech excuses that
tendency by glorifying it: "His remarks projected him with
the dimensions of an authentic political leader being
transformed himself, day by day, so that the concerned party
activitist and studious intellectual has come to grips with
the concrete demands of the process of history."


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


3. (U) This piece and others in our series can be consulted
at our SIPRNET site
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/
along with extensive other material.
KUBISKE