The Secretary of the Presidency and one of President Leonel Fernández’s top aides, Danilo Medina, asserted yesterday that the possibility still exists that the President could stand for reelection. Speaking on a Telecable Nacional Channel 10 program, Medina said that his Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) would be disposed to negotiate with the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), which presently controls Congress, on amendments to the Constitution. PRD in the past has called for lowering the 50% threshold now in the Constitution for winning the presidency in the first round of voting. PRD’s fallen leader, Dr. José Francisco Peña Gómez won the most votes in the first round of presidential elections in 1996, but just missed the 50% threshold. He lost in the second round after the Reformista Party (PRSC) threw its support behind the PLD candidate, Leonel Fernández. PRD worries that a similar scenario could be played out again in future elections. Medina said that the PLD might be willing to support a lower threshold if in exchange it could gain PRD support for a Constitution amendment to allow reelection of a President. After a political crisis sparked by fraud in the 1994 presidential elections, the Constitution was then amended to prohibit reelection, in part to bar then-President Joaquín Balaguer from running again in 1996. Medina asserted that Fernández remains the best candidate for PLD to back in the year 2000. He admitted that it would be difficult to win a constitutional reform deal with the PRD, because "the PRD fears Leonel Fernández and PRD rank-and-file don’t want to see even Leonel’s shadow on the electoral ballot."
