Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch has broken away from the group of six pre-candidates opposed to the President’s re-election, announcing that she would put herself up independently for selection as Presidential candidate at the party convention, against President Hipolito Mejia. The convention model is the President’s preferred method for the PRD to choose its candidate for the Presidential election of 2004. The anti-re-election group, which originally consisted of seven PRD Presidential hopefuls, is now down to just five members: Hatuey De Camps, Jose Rafael Abinader, Ramon Alburquerque, Emmanuel Esquea and Rafael Flores Estrella. Rafael “Fello” Subervi Bonilla broke from their ranks on the eve of the plebiscite. The group’s stance was that Presidential re-election was not sanctioned by the PRD constitution, and they had pursued a strategy of surveying the party membership on their views about this, eventually holding a plebiscite earlier this month that resulted in a categorical 90% ‘no’ vote, but displayed a relatively low turnout of PRD members. Ortiz Bosch called on Hatuey Decamps, party president, and another pre-candidate opposed to Presidential re-election to convene a meeting of the party’s executive committee, with the aim of organizing a convention, and asking that neutral groups like Participacion Ciudadana and international organizations be brought in to ensure the process would be carried out appropriately and with transparency. Ortiz Bosch’s justification for her volte-face was that excluding President Mejia from the pre-selection process could lead to a drawn-out legal process with the Central Electoral Board (JCE), which would jeopardize the party’s chances in the 2004 polls. “Certain of victory, I feel obliged to contribute to the resolution of this conflict,” she told a large assembly of her supporters at Santo Domingo’s Plaza hotel last night. She did not exclude the possibility of reaching an agreement with one of her fellow pre-candidates to join her on the ballot as her Vice-President and reaffirmed her opposition to the principle of re-election. “We shall defeat re-election with our candidacy and our votes,” the Vice-President declared, warning that “Milagros Ortiz Bosch cannot be bought.” She blamed the President for the country’s problems but did not spare the main opposition PLD party, saying that her candidacy would prevent the possibility of a return to “a purple past, which was not transparent, progressive or inclusive.” Purple is the PLD’s party campaigning color.