US embassy cable - 04SANTODOMINGO1723

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SANTO DOMINGO 001723 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR WHA AND DRL 
NSC FOR SHANNON AND MADISON 
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TREASURY FOR OASIA-LAMONICA 
USDOC FOR 4322/ITA/MAC/WH/CARIBBEAN BASIN DIVISION 
USDOC FOR 3134/ITA/USFCS/RD/WH 
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E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, DR 
SUBJECT: (CORRECTED COPY) DOMINICAN ELECTIONS NO. 28: 
RUNNING PAST ONE ANOTHER 
 
REF: SANTO DOMINGO 0171 
 
1. (SBU) This is the 28th in our series on the Dominican 
presidential elections: 
 
Election Series #28: 
 
Running Past One Another: Styles of the Leading Candidates 
 
There will almost certainly be no debate between Hipolito 
Mejia and Leonel Fernandez, even though civic organizations 
and commentators seized upon the Ambassador's February 25 
proposal.  Caught by journalists after a ceremony, Mejia said 
he would "consider" the idea.  PLD Secretary General Reynaldo 
Pared Perez said that Fernandez wouldn,t think of debating 
someone with less than 20 percent support (spiking Mejia with 
the very gibe Mejia used in a dismissive reference to "that 
ex-president with 18 or 20 points" in February 2002). 
 
Fernandez, with more than 60 percent in polls since late 
2003, has no reason to take the risk of a direct 
confrontation.  The styles of the two candidates are entirely 
different.  And an encounter between Mejia and Fernandez 
would not be a debate in the usual sense.  It would be closer 
to a verbal mugging of Fernandez than a discussion of 
substance. 
 
The Farmer from Gurabo 
 
Hipolito Mejia is caustic, jocular, colloquial and direct. 
His target is the average Dominican - - farmers, shopkeepers, 
laborers, and the unemployed. Mejia is smart but not 
particularly well educated or focused in his discourse.  He 
and his faction of the PRD are strongest outside the cities. 
Mejia campaigns by going to the provinces to deliver public 
works - - in late 2003 he showed the Ambassador a thick 
binder of small projects stopped for lack of funds.  The 
December and January disbursements from the InterAmerican 
Development Bank and World Bank provided the money for the 
administration to finish many of these, at least to a point 
where they could be inaugurated.  At these events Mejia 
appears in the crowds, outdoors, wearing a guayabera shirt 
and often a straw hat, looking very much like a farmer. 
Mejia has largely united the party after the fights over 
re-election and leadership, and he is playing to place 
strongly enough to deprive Fernandez of a majority and push 
the election into a second round. 
 
Mejia,s language is vigorous and colorful - - so remarkable 
that it is the subject to a new academic study: "The 
Colloquial Speech of Hipolito Mejia: Study of an Idiolect." 
Most of the 248-page book is devoted to vocabulary and 
expressions from Mejia,s public utterances, analyzed in 
context, meaning, significance and style.  The listing begins 
in 1999 with a transcription of candidate Mejia,s own 
explanation of the colloquialism, "I,ve got him by the 
pichirri": 
 
 "The pichirri is the part, the spot where you grab a hen or 
a rooster - - if you press on it there, you dominate it 
entirely, so then, referring to a candidate like him (the 
PLD,s Danilo Medina) who is not the only one out there, 
since Dr. Balaguer is there and you can,t grab him by the 
 pichirri, since he,s a smart man - - definitely though, 
as for this gentleman (Medina), I have him by the pichirri, 
because he can,t budge."  (An anecdote not in the book: 
when journalists threw the expression at Fernandez, who grew 
up in New York, they got a blank look: "What is a pichirri?") 
 
Mejia,s invective has often been directed at Fernandez and 
at his PLD "comesolos" (selfish, exclusive enjoyers of 
privilege who dine alone).  Mejia aggressively projects tubby 
manliness (hombria) and dismisses Fernandez as ineffectual 
and even effeminate.  His style, says one editor, is the 
"politics of cockfighting, of machos who impose themselves at 
any cost, with lethal barbs and spurs." Last October after an 
interview with international news channel Univisin, the 
cameras, still rolling, caught Mejia making crude jokes about 
Fernandez,s sexuality.  And Mejia hammers away, calling the 
PLD privileged moneyed "little gentlemen" (senoritos) out to 
exploit the country for themselves.  Mejia now appears every 
Sunday evening on the interview program "Una Vez a la 
Semana"8 on a government channel, expostulating in a style 
summarized on March 15 by El Caribe newspaper: "Once again he 
slammed into speculators and his PLD opponent Leonel 
Fernandez, reminding viewers that Fernandez worked and got 
paid by one of the banks that failed in the financial sector. 
 In the style customary for his public comments, the 
President,s declarations leaped from one theme to another 
without stopping to explain details." 
 
 In short, Mejia is pugnacious, unpredictable and emotive, a 
larger than life caricature of the common Dominican man -- in 
media terms, "hot." 
 
The Foundation Man 
 
Leonel Fernandez raises excitement at meetings across the 
country but more for his aura of the coming conqueror than 
for his personal style or presence.  Since leaving office in 
2000 Fernandez has presided over the Global Foundation for 
Economic Development (see www.funglode.org), a vehicle 
endowed for him by wealthy supporters.  He has traveled 
widely and participated in many ceremonial and academic 
events in the United States and in Europe.  Fernandez is the 
man in the suit, with a thoughtful look on his face and a 
grimace of concern at the plight of the country. 
 
The PLD is marketing Fernandez with lots of display media 
("Leonel is coming back!" with smiling picture, purple 
background evoking the PLD colors and a Dominican flag - - 
used so frequently that PRD grumblers write about 
inappropriate exploitation of national symbols).  This past 
week the PLD was running an hour-long docu-program on 
national television at least once a day.  Fernandez is 
sitting on the verandah of a clearly upper class residence, 
conducting "town meeting" style Qs and As with twenty or so 
concerned Dominicans.  The scene could be in Spain, except 
for the Dominican accents - - all the attentive participants, 
men and women, are white professionals in a mixed-race 
population.  The only glimpse of a dark face is that of a 
waiter in a white jacket disappearing through a doorway. 
Fernandez, the most criollo-looking one on screen, speaks 
quietly, fluently and in polysyllables of re-establishing 
business confidence to attract flight capital back to the 
country, tax reform, the quasi-fiscal deficit, debt 
renegotiation, seeking international assistance for Haiti, 
moving toward higher value-added in manufacturing, enforcing 
migration laws, using the U.S. "third border" initiative to 
exploit the country,s strategic position, the curative and 
preventive functions of national health policy, strengthening 
the judiciary, re-privatization of electricity distribution 
companies, investing in public works, stabilizing the 
exchange rate, and the need for quality leadership, vision, 
and a frank dialogue on the medium and long term.  In other 
words, Fernandez is a pat, well-spoken policy wonk, cozy with 
the well off. He mentions Mejia,s administration almost with 
regret, with passing comments about "irresponsible" fiscal 
policy, media manipulation and "confusion" in leadership. 
Fernandez has no surprising ideas but he doesn,t make any 
clearly unachievable promises, either.  In media terms his is 
a "cool" presence. 
 
The docu-program breaks three times to present the same two 
very slick one-minute political ads.  The first shows 
cartoonish vignettes of economic distress with live actors 
and special effects, with close-ups of Leonel showing silent 
concern.  The second is a lively basketball game where the 
white-jerseyed "Nation" is losing badly to the black-jerseyed 
"Crisis" team, which is using fouls and intimidation - - 
until Leonel comes striding into the gym (assured, contained 
and in a suit) to coach the "Nation" back to victory.  This 
is a funny, fast and appealing spot - - and on screen the 
cheering fans, loving it, actually look Dominican. 
 
Neither candidate has yet published a campaign platform. 
 
The Puzzle of the Polls 
 
Polls in October, January and February consistently showed 
Fernandez with better than 60 percent of the prospective 
vote.  In our view those votes are not solidly Leonel,s - - 
many of them are votes for "anything but this current 
economic misery."  Fernandez will need to work hard to keep a 
convincing lead, since Mejia now has sufficient international 
funding to keep the electricity sector going and to splash 
out modest but numerous public works projects.  Mejia is 
directing all his effort to winning back the man in the 
street and the family in the countryside, the traditional 
supporters of the PRD.  On March 14 Mejia asserted that the 
PRD had regained the lead in 20 of 22 provinces.  If the 
election goes to a second round, Mejia will have an 
additional 45 days to assemble a coalition -- probably 
including elements of the third big party, the PRSC. 
 
At this point it looks like about an even chance for Leonel 
to win outright on May 16.  He has not been very effective or 
directed in communicating the message that even for the 
PRD,s base he offers better hopes than Mejia does.  Leonel 
hasn,t yet got Mejia by the pichirri. 
 
2. (U) Drafted by Michael Meigs. 
 
3. (U)  This report and the rest of our elections series are 
available on our SIPRNET site 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  along with 
other material. 
 
KUBISKE