US embassy cable - 04SANTODOMINGO147

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SANTO DOMINGO 000147 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR WHA, WHA/CAR (SMITH, MCISAAC), WHA/PPSC, WHA/OAS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, DR 
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN ELECTION SERIES #13: NEW FEINT: THE LAW 
OF "SLOGANS" 
 
 
1.  Following is no. 13 in our series on the Dominican 
presidential elections. 
 
 
NEW FEINT: PROPOSAL FOR AMENDMENTS WITH THE LAW OF "SLOGANS" 
 
                     "We are steeped to the marrow in 
                      impulsiveness, always reacting to 
                      immediate circumstances, the reason 
                      that we are dogged by terrible evil 
                      of superficiality -- the perpetual 
                      source of preventable mistakes." 
 
                            -- Listin Diario editorial, 
                               January 8: "ASI SOMOS" 
 
PRD Henry Sarraff may or may not have been well-intentioned 
when he put his "Law of Slogans" (Ley de Lemas) into the 
legislative hopper on January 2, but he certainly gave a new 
energy to discussion of the blockages in the major parties. 
In brief, his solution to the leadership crises in the ruling 
Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) and in the Revolutionary 
Social Christian Party (PRSC) is to move the party primary 
process to election day.  Sarraff would allow each recognized 
party to field up to five tickets -- president plus vice 
president -- and would declare victory for the leading ticket 
of the leading party.  The "slogans" tag is shorthand for the 
two-step choice of the voter: first, for a party (with its 
"slogan") and then for a faction of that party (with its own, 
subordinated "slogan"). 
 
Saraff argues in a letter to the Ambassador that the process 
is similar to that used for the election of the Dominican 
Congress in 2002, in which representives of the provinces 
were chosen from prioritized political party lists in 
proportion to the percentages of the total vote.  Saraff 
calls this the "Uruguay model," without noting it was used 
there in 1939 (and has since been abandoned). 
 
Sarraff's suggestion for dealing with the breakdown of the 
party primary process appeals greatly to the three PRD 
pre-candidates (VP Ortiz-Bosch, Rafael Subervi and Emmanuel 
Esquea) who decided, finally, not to run against incumbent 
President Hipolito Mejia in the PRD national party vote now 
set for January 18.  They had previously sought an 
arrangement whereby they could mutually pledge votes to the 
leader amongst the three, in hopes of overcoming Mejia on his 
own ground.  Saraff's proposed modifications of the electoral 
law would give each of them a (long-shot) opportunity to try 
to outperform Mejia on election day and thereby take both the 
PRD and the presidency away from him.  They would be betting 
that an unsplintered PRD would be likely to outpoll the PLD, 
no matter how attractive the current prospects of PLD 
candidate Leonel Fernandez. 
 
Everyone in town has something to say about this one, which 
suggests to us that many are apprehensive that this very 
late, very ornate, and PRD-slanted initiative might actually 
get voted through by the heavy PRD majority in the Congress. 
Technically, the current extension of the legislative session 
expires on January 12 and is charged only with considering 
legislation relating to the budget and the IMF program. 
House of Representatives President Pacheco commented 
tight-lipped that legislators would "study" the proposal.  If 
the Congress doesn't act quickly, the only recourse would be 
to get Mejia to call a special session or to wait until the 
February 27 regular session.  Mejia, at first apparently 
interested in the Saraff initiative, subsequently backed away 
from it, telling journalists, "This is no creature of ours." 
 
Leonel Fernandez initially dissmissed the proposal as "sloppy 
thinking," but as clamor increased, on Janauary 7 he sent PLD 
chiefs to ask the coordinator of the civil-society "Elections 
Monitoring Commission" Msgr Agripino Nunez to convene a 
public debate on the proposal.  Nunez had just received Peggy 
Cabral, widow of PRD leader Jose Pena Gomez and organizer of 
the "official" PRD party vote.  Cabral had earlier received 
the three PRD pre-candidates in her home for a lengthy, 
inconclusive session.  She called on Nunez in her personal 
capacity, not as the PRD organizer.  The monsignor told the 
press he was sorry that Peggy Cabral, "she, of all persons, 
has to get involved in this difficult business." 
 
That evening Mejia received the three PRD pre-candidates for 
a discussion, but no one reported any progress.  As he left, 
Subervi repeated that he and Mejia's other rivals would not 
be participating in the January 18 vote. 
Secretary of Culture Tony Rahul, organizer of the postponed 
 
SIPDIS 
December 18 PRD convention, wrote an op-ed piece in Listin 
Diario advocating the "Ley de Lemas." The leading business 
organization CONEP opposes it. Rebel PRD party president 
Hatuey Descamps called the proposal "a joke, at a well-chosen 
moment." 
PRSC presidential candidate Eduardo Estrella is against the 
idea, and his supporters called for action against it. 
Estrella's frustrated rival Jacinto Peynado, still in 
hospital in Miami, was cautiously non-committal in response 
to a journalist's phone call. 
 
Would it be constitutional?  President of the well respected 
NGO "Foundation for Institutionalism and Justice" (FINJUS) 
Jose Rizek maintains that the idea would contravene the 
Constitution's specific directive that the president and 
vice-president are elected by a "direct vote"; if the law is 
passed, FINJUS will petition the Supreme Court for an 
interpretation. 
 
The "Ley de Lemas" may be part of the silly season, but it's 
not beyond imagination that politicians feeling themselves 
unbound by traditions or institutions might set off to pursue 
Saraff's beguiling slogans. 
 
In the midst of this confusion, one deeply involved 
politician spoke up with decorum and elegance.  On the 
occasion of the ceremonial New Year's greetings to the 
administration, January 6, Vice President Milagros 
Ortiz-Bosch responded to a journalist's question about these 
PRD tractations by apologizing to all Dominicans "for all the 
pain and uncertainties that we have caused during this long 
year, a year also of both economic and financial 
difficulties." 
 
2.  Drafted by Michael Meigs. 
 
MARSHALL