US embassy cable - 05SANTODOMINGO4944

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SANTO DOMINGO 004944 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, INR/IAA; 
NSC STAFF FOR LATIN AMERICA ADVISOR; 
USSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD; 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: DR, PGOV, PINR, Dominican Politics 
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN POLITICS II #7:  PRD EXPELS A MAVERICK 
AND A DESERTER 
 
1. This is the seventh cable in a series reporting on the 
second year of the administration of Dominican president 
Leonel Fernandez. 
 
PRD Expels a Maverick and a Deserter 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
Months after Senator Ramiro Espino of Samana Province and 
Senator Tonty Rutinel Dominguez of Santo Domingo stopped 
cooperating with the party, the main opposition PRD has now 
formally expelled them.  At the PRD national executive 
committee November 2, most of the 1400 members present voted 
for the party leadership,s motion, although not without 
noisy objections from Rutinel supporters.  PRD secretary 
general Orlando Jorge Mera said the party, in response to 
pressure from the rank and file, was applying "a hard line 
against indiscipline."  Indeed, Rutinel had been loudly booed 
at the party,s last delegates, convention in July. 
 
This decision slightly erodes the PRD,s majority in the 
Senate, with 27 instead of 29 senators out of 32.  Many 
observers believe the PRD will lose far more legislative 
seats in the elections next May.  PRD domination of Congress 
has caused repeated problems for the Fernndez administration 
by delaying bills such as the ratification of DR-CAFTA, the 
regional free trade agreement. 
 
Why did two senior PRD legislators with established 
constituencies voluntarily renounce their privileged party 
roles? 
Senator Espino, Senate tourism committee chairman, defected 
last February to join the newly establlished Social 
Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRSD) of renegade former PRD 
leader Hatuey de Camps. Continuing to hold his Senate seat, 
Espino has excellent prospects of running for reelection 
under the new banner, drawing on a provincial constituency 
whose interests he has consistently defended.  In 2004 he 
vigorously politicized the deposit of rockash from Puerto 
Rico along the shore of Samana and participated in a special 
Congressional committee to investigate the issue. The only 
senator to follow Hatuey as a founding member of the PRSD, 
Espino may also have improved his prospects for other 
high-profile positions, including a possible vice 
presidential candidacy on the PRSD ticket in 2008. 
 
More confrontational, Tonty Rutinel, has until now served as 
chairman of the Senate national security and public order 
committee.  With 37 years in the PRD, he has repeatedly 
defied party leaders on key issues.  In 2002 he opposed the 
constitutional amendment that allowed Hiplito Meja to run 
for reelection as president; in 2003 he successfully opposed 
the PRD,s candidate for speaker of the lower house of 
Congress and gained election for his own candidate, Alfredo 
Pacheco.  He was against accepting Mejia intimate Hernani 
Salazar to fill a vacant PRD seat in the Senate in 2004 and 
accused Salazar of spreading bribes to "buy" his seat.  He 
opposed ratification of DR-CAFTA in 2005 as "an irresponsible 
move by the Government and the Senate, which will harm 
national production." 
 
Rutinel has a history of resigning in disgust -- from the 
chair of the Bicameral Committee for Reform and Modernization 
of the Congress last year because of alleged Meja 
administration collusion with corrupt practices, and, more 
recently, from the PRD,s vice presidency, political 
committee, and national executive committee because he 
believed the new party leadership was imposed by Meja and 
his cronies.  In a moment of candor in July, the feisty 
senator told a journalist, "In the Senate, they,re tired of 
me, and I,m tired of them."  He requested a "leave of 
absence" from the Senate. 
 
But this is not the whole story.  As the election 
pre-campaign heats up, electoral calculations are involved, 
and Hatuey appears to be influencing them.  In Rutinel,s 
letter of resignation from the PRD and the Senate, published 
November 1 by the electronic journal Clave Digital, Rutinel 
said he was reacting to efforts by "two or three party 
leaders" to block his intended candidacy for reelection to 
the Senate  -- otherwise "a sure thing" based on his 60-70% 
poll ratings in the nation,s most populous province. 
According to Clave Digital, Hatuey Decamps recently said he 
had offered Tonty the PRSD senatorial candidacy for Santo 
Domingo.  In July, Rutinel reflected wistfully, "I am and 
will always be a perredesta despite saying good-bye," and he 
undertook to "retire to my house and do social work."   We 
read this with skepticism.  To justify switching parties, all 
Tonty would have to do is adopt Hatuey,s line that the PRSD 
represents the "real PRD," true to the ideals of the late 
Pena Gomez. 
 
If Hatuey launches two credible senatorial candidates, he 
will chip away at the massive PRD electoral base.  A possible 
and often rumored alliance of the PRSD with the ruling PLD, 
in turn, could be a multiplier for Hatuey,s limited forces 
and cause concern to PRD leaders as they seek to protect 
their redoubts in Congress. 
 
2. (U) Drafted by Bainbridge Cowell. 
 
3. (U) This piece and others in our series can be consulted 
at our SIPRNET web site 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodmingo          along 
with extensive other material. 
HERTELL