Senator Tito Hernández (Partido Reformista Social Cristiano for San Cristobal) has made available all the billboards he used to promote his PRSC pre-candidacy for senator for San Cristóbal to an opposition party candidate. Partido de la Liberación Dominicana candidate to senator, Melanio Paredes now has the support of the PRSC candidate to deputy in Congress. Hernández is a former PLD activist and poor agronomist who was turned into a millionaire after former President Joaquín Balaguer lured him to the PRSC and appointed him Minister of Agriculture and then senator for San Cristóbal. He had won the PRSC primaries for senator last month but President Joaquín Balaguer inscribed José Osvaldo Leger for the post. The PRSC leader assigned Hernández the No. 1 deputy position, which means he will make it into Congress, with or without the support of the party. Hernández made headlines last year for allegedly using his position to acquire Dominican Agrarian Institute lands. Hernández and his brother are now major residential property developers in San Cristóbal. Political analysts say that Hernández will do all possible so that Leger, who supported Peña Gómez’s aspirations to win the presidency for the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) in the 1996 presidential elections, but returned to the favor of Balaguer in time to be appointed PRSC candidate to senator, receives the least of votes. The PRSC has always won in San Cristóbal, except for a time when internal problems within the party resulted in a win for the opposition. It is expected that the PRSC internal problems will translate into a loss for the party this time around.
