US embassy cable - 05SANTODOMINGO3434

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SANTO DOMINGO 003434 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, WHA/AND, INR, EB/ESC/IEC/EPC; 
NSC FOR SHANNON; USCINCSO ALSO FOR POLAD;TREASURY FOR 
OASIA-MAUREEN WAFER; USDOC FOR 4322/ITA/MAC/WH/CARIBBEAN 
BASIN DIVISION 
USDOC FOR 3134/ITA/USFCS/RD/WH; DHS FOR CIS-CARLOS ITURREGUI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, DR, Dominican Politics 
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