Presidential candidate hopeful for the PRSC Jacinto Peynado and fellow former Vice President Carlos Morales Troncoso announced they would oppose the PPH movement and its rumored efforts to promote a PRSC presidential candidate partisan to the PPH and its interests. The PPH movement is the political faction that led President Hipolito Mejia to power and supports his re-election for 2004. It has not been unusual for sectors within the PRSC to back initiatives of the PRD government so far.
At the meeting held on Sunday in support of Peynado?s candidacy were also party leader Donald Reid Cabral, Guillermo Caram and Jose Osvaldo Leger.
Peynado said that the future of the PRSC will be at stake in the primaries on 30 March and that he feels like David in a battle against Goliath. He defined his enemies as those members of the PPH and warned that this sector of the government never should have gotten their hands on the heart of the PRSC.
Political analysts say that the governmental PPH campaign wing favors former Santiago senator Eduardo Estrella over the more independent Peynado. The analysts also say that the funds from the powerful PPH machine would be used to back Estrella in exchange for his support of the PPH-PRD candidate on election day. Analysts explain that given the declining popularity of the PRD, the party expects to need the support of the PRSC to win in 2004.
Meanwhile, Hoy newspaper reported that Mejia visited the home of engineer Guaroa Liranzo, one of the most renowned Dominican builders of all times and a close friend of the late former President Joaquin Balaguer. Liranzo is believed to support the candidacy of Estrella for the PRSC candidacy.
Peynado received a 35-percent rating in the Hamilton-Hoy newspaper poll, followed by Eduardo Estrella, with 28 percent.