US embassy cable - 04SANTODOMINGO5777

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SANTO DOMINGO 005777 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/CAR, WHA/EPSC, EB/OMA, INR; 
NSC FOR SHANNON AND MADISON;LABOR FOR ILAB; USCINCSO ALSO 
FOR POLAD;TREASURY FOR OASIA-LCARTER 
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: 10/17/2009 
TAGS: PGOV, PINR, DR 
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN POLITICS #6:  THE PRD: IT'S BROKE.  FIX 
IT. 
 
REF: A. SANTO DOMING 5302 
     B. SANTO DOMINGO 5468 
     C. SANTO DOMINGO 5605 
 
Classified By: ECOPOL Counselor Michael Meigs for Reason 1.5 (b) and (d 
). 
 
 1. (SBU) This is #6 in our current series on politics in the 
Dominican Republic: 
 
The PRD: It,s Broke.  Fix It. 
 
(U)  ** Without Hipolito Mejia to hold it together, the 
venerable populist PRD is not mounting a coordinated response 
to Leonel Fernandez's PLD administration. We look at the 
contending personalities and the efforts to heal the wounds 
-- and identify some potential PRD leaders in the upcoming 
generation. ** 
 
(U) Now in opposition, the Dominican Revolutionary Party is 
fragmented.  Former president Hipolito Mejia shows little 
interest in the party, and its lesser leaders snipe in the 
media.  Followers of ousted party president Hatuey de Camps 
continue to squat in the party headquarters, forcing the 
"legitimate" PRD to meet at another location.  There are at 
least two candidates to head the party, but the political 
committee on October 19 decided to limit a November 28 
convention of delegates to revising the party statutes and 
postpone an "ordinary convention" (national balloting to 
elect party officers) until February. 
 
(U) On paper the PRD dominates Congress, with 29 of 32 
senators and 72 of 150 representatives.  But party discipline 
has virtually disappeared, leaving the PRD as legislative 
opposition rudderless. 
 
Senators Refuse to Be Whipped 
 
(U) On September 21 and 23, party leaders Tony Raful and 
Vicente Sanchez Baret pressed senators to exclude from tax 
reform legislation an anti-trade protectionist tax favoring 
sugar interests, directly counter to the free trade agreement 
signed with the United States and Central American countries 
just six weeks before.  Sanchez Baret,s talk of expelling 
dissidents from the party angered PRD senators and was taken 
as a challenge to the leadership of Senate President Andres 
Bautista (PRD).  On a first reading, 14 senators defied 
Sanchez Baret; on the second, 19 did so. 
 
(C) Apprised the previous day of the threat to the bilateral 
trade agreement, Mejia had told  the Ambassador that with a 
few days of work he could counter it.  He then he left town. 
That same evening the senators approved the tax package, 
complete with the offending tax. 
 
What Must Be Done? 
 
(U) The PRD political committee met October 6 to begin 
organizing a party referendum and convention.  As 
vice-president of the party Mejia made his first public 
appearance since leaving office, sitting alongside aging 
former president Salvador Jorge Blanco.  He blustered in 
jocular fashion with the press, as usual, but offered no cure 
for the party,s disorganization.  He disclaimed any interest 
in seeking the party presidency. 
 
(U) Other PRD figures have called for "renovation" or 
"restructuring" of the PRD, and some acknowledge mistakes 
under Mejia,s leadership.  But as the Fernandez 
administration moves smartly to investigate charges of 
malfeasance, many in the PRD are feeling vulnerable.  The 
party as a whole is on the defensive, complaining that the 
new administration has failed to respect Mejia appointments 
to permanent positions, insisting that last-minute pension 
decisions be respected, and denying that PRD rowdies are 
contributing to the perceived "crime wave" across the 
country. 
 
(C) Without Mejia,s rough charisma, his "PPH" faction no 
longer has any coherence.  Acting PRD president Tony Raful on 
September 28 expressed doubt to poloff the party could hold 
its balloting for party officers ("ordinary convention") in 
November as scheduled.  On October 20, the PRD Political 
Committee announced a decision, to be confirmed, to postpone 
the party election until February 27; as an innovation, all 
registered party members -- not just local and provincial 
leaders -- will be able to vote.  A convention of delegates 
November 28 will be limited to revising the party statutes. 
PRD vice president Tirso Mejia-Ricart, on the organizing 
committee, told poloff October 14 that he favored using the 
November convention to elect new electoral precinct 
committees, 
 
(U) There is no clear path to reunification.  Former VP 
Ortiz-Bosch reminded the press that the PRD has bounced back 
before, from equally divisive confrontations in the 1980s 
between Jose Francisco Pena Gomez and Jacobo Majluta.  But 
many, including Senate vice-president Cesar Matias, refuse to 
reach out to Hatuey De Camps and his followers, who were 
expelled in May for openly campaigning alongside the PLD 
against Mejia,s re-election.  To develop options for the 
future, former vice president Milagros Ortiz-Bosch -- who 
chairs a committee to organize the convention and modernize 
the party -- directed that a 40-question referendum of PRD 
members be held nationwide starting October 16-17, an 
undertaking that she characterized as a 
"consultation-self-criticism" on the party's errors and what 
is to be done. 
 
The Tired, The Discredited, and The Contentious 
 
(C) New faces are needed.  Senior leaders are familiar, 
spent, or beyond stump politics. 
Ortiz-Bosch was indecisive and then half-hearted in 
campaigning for Mejia.  PRD secretary-general Rafael "Fello" 
Subervi has a reputation for sleaze, not offset at all by his 
belated acceptance of the VP slot on Mejia,s ticket.  On 
October 15, Subervi told the press he "does not aspire to a 
position as a party officer."  Former labor minister Milton 
Ray Guevara, amending the party statutes, is a fine legal 
scholar and smooth operator, praised for his chairmanship of 
the ILO annual general meeting in June.  But he lacks a wide 
or deep following in the party. 
 
(C) Other rivals last year for the presidential nomination 
are regional barons or simply pretenders.  These include 
Senator Ramon Alburquerque of Monte Plata, Jose Rafael 
Abinader, and Emmanuel Esquea, who has just announced his 
candidacy for party president -- evidence that perpetual 
optimism overlooks hard facts. 
 
(SBU) PRD congressional leaders have good reputations within 
and outside the PRD.  Senate president Andres Bautista showed 
in the tax reform standoff that he will insist on respect, 
however many years he has supported Mejia and the PPH. 
Chamber of Deputies president Alfredo Pacheco won re-election 
without opposition this past August, demonstrating his 
effectiveness across party lines.  Both will have a voice in 
the party,s revival; neither shows ambition for higher 
elective office. 
(C) That leaves the devil they all know -- Hatuey De Camps, 
still recognized by his clique as party president.  Hatuey 
met last week with a small faction of friendly PRD senators 
who think that, with his handsome tiger face and offer of an 
"olive branch," he can be sold as a figure of principle 
capable of winning back the presidency in 2008. 
Mejia-Ricart, another aspirant to be party president, 
commented privately that Hatuey is no more likely than Mejia 
to unify or modernize the PRD. 
 
(U) Hatuey assembled his faction on October 9 to announce to 
the public a plan for PRD reunification.  He has strength 
within provincial party commands across the country.  He 
speaks of holding his own "convention," in disregard of the 
structures of the mainline PRD. 
 
A New Generation 
 
(SBU) Eventually the PRD will have to hand off to a new 
generation, but to whom? 
 
- - (SBU) Orlando Jorge Mera, son of President Jorge Blanco 
(1982-86), served as director of the Dominican 
Telecommunications Agency (INDOTEL) and coordinator of the 
Commission on Intellectual Property Rights.  He is young, 
smooth, and English-speaking.  But he has yet to leap from 
the role of competent technocrat to that of politician.  His 
recent op-ed piece on "challenges to the PRD" lapsed into 
platitudes. 
 
- - (C) Miguel Vargas Maldonado, former minister of public 
works, is a possibility, but will have to "prove himself 
innocent" of graft to skeptical Dominican voters. 
 
- - (SBU) Julio Cury, a young and well-spoken hatueycista 
attorney, has been prominent recently on television talk 
shows, expressing indignation about corruption and urging the 
new administration to "save the party system of democracy" by 
vigorously prosecuting Mejia administration officials.  His 
may not be a strategy for short-term victory, but in a 
country tired of corruption he may be building a reputation 
for the future. 
 
- - (SBU) Senator Alejandro Santos, chairman of the industry, 
trade, and free zones committee, could be positioned for 
influence.  He also chairs the special committee to examine 
Fernandez,s proposed revocation of the protectionist tax on 
fructose drinks.  Santos was briefly on the Foreign Ministry 
staff before serving as appointed governor of rural Salcedo 
province, 2001-2002. 
 
The Short Haul 
 
(SBU) Modernizing the PRD,s organization and procedures may 
be a way to rebuild its strength, currently stuck at the 
traditional 30 percent of the electorate with a formal 
membership of 1.2 million.  Ortiz-Bosch's committee is 
discussing a proposal to select party officers by direct vote 
of members, a sharp turn away from the custom of following a 
"caudillo" like Mejia or the late Jose Francisco Pena Gomez. 
Another proposal would be to restructure so that PRD local 
committees coincide with electoral precincts. 
 
(SBU) The party expects to lose some and perhaps many of its 
Congressional seats in the 2006 legislative elections.  Its 
comeback strategy will target the next presidential contest 
in 2008.  The longer the PRD takes to reconstruct itself, the 
more likely it is to stay out of power - - the last time the 
electorate voted out a PRD presidential candidate, the party 
remained in opposition for 14 years. 
 
Life without Effective Opposition 
 
(SBU) Meanwhile, the country as a whole suffers from PRD 
division.  Ongoing national crises exert great pressures on 
society and demand a constructive, coherent opposition.  The 
PRD must prove itself capable of negotiating with the 
Fernandez administration and finding consensus on approaches 
to reform, trade, rule of law, and strengthening of 
institutions.  But since losing the election, the PRD has 
been less than the sum of its increasingly self-interested 
members. 
 
2. (U) Drafted by Bainbridge Cowell, Michael Meigs. 
 
3. (U) This piece and others in our series can be consulted 
on our classified SIPRNET site 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  along with 
extensive other material. 
HERTELL