DOMINICAN POLITICS III #8: HIPOLITO MEJIA SUPPORTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SANTO DOMINGO 003329

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, INR/IAA; USSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD;
TREASURY FOR OASIA-JLEVINE; DEPT PASS USDA FOR FAS; USDOC
FOR 4322/ITA/MAC/WH/CARIBBEAN BASIN DIVISION; USDOC FOR
3134/ITA/USFCS/RD/WH; DHS FOR CIS-CARLOS ITURREGUI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2016
TAGS: DR PGOV PREL ECON EFIN
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN POLITICS III #8: HIPOLITO MEJIA SUPPORTS
VARGAS MALDONADO

REF: SANTO DOMINGO 3308

Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Roland W. Bullen, Reasons 1.4(b)
, (d)


1. (U) This is the eighth cable in our series on Dominican
politics in the third year of the administration of President
Leonel Fernandez.

(C) During a tour d'horizon of the local political scene,
former president Hipolito Mejia (2000-2004) told the
Ambassador that his Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD)
needed the managerial skills and vision of Miguel Vargas
Maldonado, the front-runner for the 2008 PRD presidential
nomination. Mejia sees Vargas as more of a businessman than
a politician, someone who can manage a political campaign and
a government as if they were corporations. Mejia predicted
that 80 percent of PRD members will support Vargas at the
January 7 convention. He dismissed as irrelevant as series
of muck-raking articles about Vargas's business affairs in
the on-line journal Clave Digital -- "that's your friend at
work" (apparently referring to businessman-owner Abraham
Hazoury).

(C) The PRD is undergoing a process of renewal, he said, and
Vargas is part of a new generation. Soon senior PRD figures
who are rival to Vargas Maldonado "will be in the trashcan."
He sniffed at the candidacy of his former vice president,
Milagros Ortiz Bosch. PRD Secretary General Orlando Jorge
Mera "is a good boy, serious -- but he lacks force."

(C) Mejia asserts that the ruling Dominican Liberation Party
(PLD) is vulnerable to a "crisis" in February or March of

2007. "At this point in my term, I had support of sixty
percent." (In the 2004 election he got only 32 percent.)
The former President predicted that the unsolved problems in
the electricity system, fiscal problems, resumption of debt
servicing, excessive increases in government employment and
insufficient social spending would be factors.

(C) Mejia considers that President Fernandez may face a split
within the PLD as chief of staff Danilo Medina moves to
consolidate his own presidential ambitions for 2008. Mejia
says that Medina has in his pocket two-thirds of the PLD's
senators and congressional representatives. He called Medina
"dangerous. . . a Mao-style Marxist."

(C) In the Baninter fraud case, Mejia said, "The defendants
will probably be found guilty but they're negotiating with
the prosecutors for a ten-year sentence. . . I think they
should go to jail for 20 years."

(C) The Reformed Social Christian Party (PRSC) of Balaguer is
"hopeless." He sees Amable Aristy Castro as "a photocopy of
Balaguer -- a schemer, dividing factions with money and
maneuvers." Former presidential candidate Eduardo Estrella
is an honest man, but with nothing more to recommend him.
"None of them are real democrats."

COMMENT

(C) Mejia is a keen observer and still highly influential
within the PRD. Although with bluster and exaggeration, he
was confirming some important facts: the major opposition
party is securely in the hands of wealthy entrepreneur Vargas
Maldonado, who has the skills and strengths to mount a
powerful campaign against the incumbent Fernandez. A 70
percent approval rating for Fernandez looks good but could
well evaporate. And there will be lots of presidential
politicking for this Embassy to report on over the next 18


months.


2. (U) Drafted by Peter Hemsch.


3. (U) This report and extensive other material can be
consulted on our SIPRNET site,
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/
BULLEN