The seven individuals vying for the PRD presidential candidacy for the May 2004 election and who dispute President Hipolito Mejia’s desire to be re-elected, announced yesterday their intention to proceed with their plebiscite for 12 October. Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch, Rafael Subervi Bonilla, Jose Rafael Abinader, Enmanuel Esquea Guerrero, Rafael Flores, Ramon Alburquerque and Hatuey de Camps are organizing the event in which all registered PRD members will be able to submit their opinion anonymously on whether President Mejia should seek to be re-elected or not. President Mejia and the PPH faction of the PRD that supports his re-election have announced they will oppose the consultation through the channels of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), the body in charge of organizing the presidential election.
Vicente Sanchez Baret, director of the Customs Department and PPH spokesman, said that the PPH is against the plebiscite on the grounds that it is not reflected in PRD party statutes, nor has this consultation mode been used previously in the history of Dominican politics. Nevertheless, Sanchez Baret said in an interview on CDN Radio that the PPH would not close any doors.
Meanwhile, Hoy newspaper reports that the president of the PRD, Hatuey de Camps, who has been the most vocal opponent to re-election within the PRD, said that President Hipolito Mejia stands little chance of being re-elected in 2004, because the Dominican people would have to be crazy to vote for a continuation of the present bleak situation.
De Camps recommended that government officers attend to the problems of the nation and abandon their political campaigning that he says will lead them nowhere.
A national survey conducted from 11-17 September by the US polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner showed that 79% of 1,300 potential voters were against Mejia’s re-election in 2004. The issue of re-election, per se, had a lesser rate of rejection, with the same survey showing that 55% oppose presidential re-election.