Leonel is not running again. Remember, he was the one who signed into law during his 1996-2000 rule prohibiting re-election, that was the reason Danilo Medina was nominated to represent the PLD and lost to Hip?lito (at that time, the only thing Hip?lito had on his side was that Pe?a G?mez had died in 1998 and many people felt sorry for him; but that would had been fruitless had Leonel been on the ballot). Had it been against Leonel, the PLD would had won that election.
Then in 2004 Hip?lito was not suppose to run for re-election since it was prohibited by law, but then he changed the law to allow one more re-election. He ran and lost to none other than Leonel, who had not broken any electoral laws.
Then in 2008 many PRD supporters were demanding for an end to the re-election clause, obviously in order to prevent Leonel from being re-elected; but Leonel was not going to fall for that again since the last time he tried to end re-elections and prevent what happened with Balaguer, it turned out to be in vain since the PRD changed the rules anyway.
Leonel doesn't have a history of changing electoral laws to his advantage. If anything, his experience has been contrary to that.
Now the PRD, that's a different story. Not only did Hip?lito changed the rules for the 2004 elections, but he had adamantly denied he was going to run for re-election and then, voila; Hip?lito tried to be re-elected.
Similar situations have occurred with other PRD instances. For example, Miguel Vargas Maldonado signed a pact with Leonel Fernandez and the PLD promising, among other things, to give continuity to the Metro project. That was about a year ago. Then last week Miguel Vargas in one of the morning television shows clearly said he was not going to give any following to the Metro project, in complete violation of the pact he signed roughly a year before.
Then came the pact from last week that Miguel and Hip?lito signed, promising to accept the results of the PRD votes. What happened when it was clear that Hip?lito had won? Miguel came out claiming fraud, that 200,000 PLD people voted for Hip?lito. Before that Pacheco came out saying that some word-of-mouth poll proved that Maldonado had won.
The point is that the PLD and Leonel doesn't have a history of violating electoral rules. If anything, whenever they touch that subject, in the long run it turns out to be to their detriment since the opposition does what it wants, when it wants regardless what they promised to do and not do.
Hip?lito doesn't really have a chance to win the next elections. The PLD has all the cards stacked on its side and they haven't even started the campaign yet. Combine that with all the things that will be happening in the following years and that Leonel is letting the pro-Leonel rumors to continue, without clearing whether he's going to run or not (he's not); the results will be pro-PLD regardless who runs.
Pe?a G?mez' charisma is virtually non-existant and except for those searching for a botella, the crisis of 2003/04 is still quite vivid in the minds of most people. Hip?lito is practically screwed.
They can keep chanting "lleg? pap?" as often as they want, most people know very well that "con pap?, vamo pa'tra a to' lo que da." :cheeky: