Two homemade Molotov-type bombs were thrown yesterday at the PRD’s headquarters on Avenida Bolivar, signalling that the division within the ruling party could take on a violent tinge. On Saturday, in a convention organized by the PPH faction of the PRD, party president Hatuey Decamps was ousted and replaced by Vicente Sanchez Baret, director of the Customs Department, and a prominent figure within the PPH group that is promoting the re-election of President Hipolito Mejia. Decamps, nevertheless, has told the press that he will not acknowledge his demotion. His followers, led by Deputy Felipa Gomez, took over the PRD’s national command center yesterday afternoon, placing a chain across the entrance door, and arming supporters outside to impede a takeover by PPH followers. Deputy Gomez is quoted in Hoy newspaper as saying that while the bombs attempted to scare them, they would not leave, “not even for bombs or bullets.”
Decamps is a strong opponent of re-election on grounds that it is forbidden by party statutes and because Mejia supporters have gone about the selection process of the PRD Presidential candidate in the 16 May election in an irregular way. In a radio interview on CDN this morning, Decamps stated: “Corruption has touched the doors of the Central Electoral Board [JCE].” He also claimed that the JCE has made improper decisions in order to make way for President Mejia’s re-election.
Hoy newspaper quoted Sanchez Baret as saying: “I will assume [the party presidency] when I feel like it, when I deem so, when I want,” he said. He visited the party headquarters at 6:25 pm yesterday but did nto attempt to enter given the barricade of Decamps followers posted outside.
Hoy newspaper’s page-2 commentary reports that the security organized for the Saturday convention in which Hipolito Mejia was proclaimed the candidate of the PRD for the May 2004 election showed the potentially violent nature of the PPH delegates. According to the newspaper, of 2,091 delegates who participated, 2,015 left their weapons in the arms safe-keeping facility set up so that the delegates would enter the public arena without guns. The newspaper says that the number of armed delegates surprised even the organizers, who in the end did not have enough lockers for all the weapons.