The ruling Partido de la Liberación Dominicana held a press conference yesterday to release results of the Global Strategy Group poll of 1,000 Dominicans of voting age. The poll took place 4-8 September throughout the national territory. The poll shows that Hipólito Mejía of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) leads with 38% of the preference of the electorate, followed by Danilo Medina of the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) with 31%, and Joaquín Balaguer of the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano with 17%. Margin of error is 3%. This year the leading Dominican press have not yet contracted polls (Listín/Sigma Dos, Hoy/Penn & Shoen and Rumbo/Gallup). Ramón Colombo, a political analyst, speculated on his morning radio talk show that this is because the publications, that are owned by major business groups, do not want to affect their interests by publishing surveys that would show the government party presidential candidate in disadvantage. In its primaries, the PLD chose then Secretary of the Presidency Danilo Medina for candidate, versus the Vice President Jaime David Fernández, who polls then showed was better liked by voters outside of the PLD. Thus, the party has to work harder to market its candidate, who trails the popular outspoken Hipólito Mejía. The president of Global Strategy Group, Alexander Jutkowitz presented the results. He, along with Technical Secretary of the Presidency Temístocles Montás, concluded that the results show that the presidential candidacy of Medina is strengthening and Medina is gaining on Mejía whose candidacy appears to have stagnated. President Leonel Fernández was an underdog at this point during the 1996 campaign. Nevertheless, political analysts say that a repeat is not so easy as Medina is not Fernández. Fernández had the unified support of his party, the support of party leader Juan Bosch, and had been Vice Presidential candidate of the PLD in the 1994 election. Mejía followers point to their own surveys that show the PRD candidate leads by more than 50%, followed by PRSC most likely candidate Joaquín Balaguer. These surveys show Medina in third place.
