E.The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) is playing one of the last cards this Sunday to redefine its leadership in the Dominican population after last year’s electoral defeat and the disintegration of its political structure.
The task becomes more complicated for the PLD leadership as the chief justice leader, former President Danilo Medina, continues to narrow his intimate circle of family members and former officials with allegations of government corruption he led during the two periods from 2012 to 2012. 2020.
Tomorrow, amid this complex panorama, the PLD will also have to choose at national and local level the 300 new candidates who will complete a selection of no less than 955 members that the Central Committee will have.
This organism will thus become the most powerful internal machinery where the purposes of transformation and strengthening of party identity will rest, after the earthquakes that have shaken the purple party since 2019.
His division and subsequent loss of power during that period led to the convening on October 11 of the IX José Joaquín Bidó Medina Congress, which introduced changes to its statutes, upheld Boschism as an official theory, a political training center and a commission for electoral justice created to resolve conflicts in internal elections.
The changes include confirming the 460 members of the Central Committee and raising it to about 1,000 members to integrate their elected legislators, mayors and city administrators in 2020. In addition to provincial and municipal presidents, those proposed by the Political Committee and 300 new candidates nationally, locally and abroad. Thus he tried to send signs of renewal and proximity of the bases to society.
Expectations
Tomorrow’s meeting of internal votes is precisely to elect those 300 new Central Committee members, creating tension and the expectation that inconsistencies, lack of transparency can be generated and the recent internal unrest can be re-spread.
The competition will include 973 candidates for 110 national-level positions and 190 local-level positions, for which 164,249 presidents from previously sanitized grassroots committees will be called to vote, including members of the Central Committee, county, municipal and municipal presidents, constituencies and intermediate committees across the country.
This selection mechanism has been widely criticized for being described as exclusive by leaders who felt upset and others even objected to it in the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
It is noted that the PLD can now no longer fail. Among these votes, electronic voting was again favored in the 374 constituencies installed in the country, with 381 tables in public schools, clubs, community centers and others, while approximately 6,000 members and leaders will perform in the operative section.
It has also highlighted the fact that the automated equipment of the Central Electoral Council (JCE), which provides the material and technical facilities as stipulated by law, the general electoral roll, the specific register of each demarcation and the ballots at the national level and digital property.
Process complexity
Due to the complexity of the voting system, there are those who remember the terrible precedents of the PLD’s internal primaries on October 6, 2019, which caused the division, as well as the aborted municipal elections held in February last year when it collapsed. the computerized system and also affected the credibility of the party.
However, the PLD Election Secretary and member of the organizing committee of the IX Congress, Danilo Díaz, has ensured that everything is monitored, with the polling stations and municipal committees formed, the materials distributed, the printed and digital register and the ballots. .
“The results will be sent from the same voting tables. Monday the 15th we will have one hundred percent of the results, but that same evening (tomorrow) we will get a high percentage, and in some places the final count ”, Diaz assures.
The regulation of the process also requires the online consultation, so that voters can confirm the polling station by posting the identification number at http://cc2021.org, while this weekend the traditional lines would be enabled by telephone to offer this service at a direct and personal way.
These internal elections will also have to comply with a strict sanitary protocol to prevent contamination at the voting tables, which includes the mandatory use of masks, washing hands with soap and water, application of a 70% alcohol solution, sanitation of the buildings. And a maximum of eight people within the locations.
Other Challenges
Once this process is completed and the registration of the Central Committee, which will become the highest authority of the party after Congress, is completed, the PLD will face new challenges.
Thus, the organization will immediately enter the election phase of the 35 members of the Political Committee, which will be in the hands of the new Central Committee elected for the period 2021-2025. Those excluded from the CP become members of an advisory committee.
After the division led by Leonel Fernández, the Political Committee consisted of former president Medina; Temístocles Montás, interim president; Reinaldo Pared Pérez, Secretary General; the former Vice President Margarita Cedeño; the former presidential candidate Gonzalo Castillo, Cristina Lizardo and José Ramón (Monchy) Fadul.
In addition, Francisco Javier García, Félix (Felucho) Jiménez, José Tomás Pérez, Abel Martínez, Alejandrina Germán, Alejandro Montás, Alexis Lantigua, Alma Fernández, Andrés Navarro, Carlos Amarante Baret, Carlos Pared Pérez, Danilo Díaz, Euclides Gutiérrez, Euclides Gutiérrez Brito and Jaime David Fernández Mirabal.
Also José Ramón Peralta, Lucía (Yomaira) Medina, Radhamés Camacho, Rubén Bichara, Simón Lizardo, Julio César Valentín, Radhamés Segura, Miriam Cabral, Ramón Venrura Camejo, Robert de la Cruz, Lidio Cadet and Melanio Paredes.
He never ever
Another important issue being discussed in the main opposition party is that the Central Committee will also control the election of the PLD president and the secretary general.
Given that no one in this process has expressed his aspirations to the Presidency, the idea has arisen that the important position is reserved for former President Medina, who never held it and who became the greatest leader of the PLD after the departure from former president Fernández.
The same is not the case with the General Secretariat, which was also vacant following the resignation submitted by Reinaldo Pared Pérez on January 13 after holding the position since 2001. Several PLD leaders aspire to this position, such as Rubén Bichara, Andrés Navarro, Luis de León, Charlie Mariotti, José Laluz, among others.
For the president, vice-presidents and general secretary alike, the new statutes prohibit them from holding positions in the state or running for elective positions, as a way of strengthening internal organizational activities, otherwise relinquishing them the party functions that perform.
Obviously, these restrictions would not affect former President Medina should he hold the presidency of the party, as the constitution prohibits him from ever running for the presidency and vice-presidency of the republic.
KNOWING MORE
Requirements
The PLD approved the reduction of partisan membership from 10 to 5 years as one of the requirements for membership of the Central Committee, with the aim of giving young people more opportunities.
Variety
The heads of party secretariats will be elected for four years, which cannot remain for more than two terms, in the interest of alternation in the levels of party leadership.