Following its party convention held on Sunday 20 July 2014, the main opposition party, the PRD, says that at the close of the preliminary vote count, Miguel Vargas Maldonado was leading the vote with 169,002 votes for 87.31% of the total. Guido Gomez Mazara received 14,089 votes for 7.27%, Francisco Pena had 8,051 votes for 4.15% and Juan Santos obtained 2,415 for 1.27%. The organizing committee declared Junior Santos general secretary. Other candidates, Andres Lugo and Carlos Gabriel Garcia resigned. Anibal Diaz Belliard was ahead in the vote for national organization secretary with 79,976 votes for 67.19%, followed by Francisco Rosado with 17,150 votes for 14.97% and Fausto Liz with 27,407 votes for 17.81%. At a press conference held after the reading of the first election result bulletin, Miguel Vargas said that the results confirmed he is the winner of a new term as party president, with more than 85% of the votes.
The convention was marked by violence and according to reports, 15 people were injured at several events nationwide.
Rafael Vasquez of the PRD said that the shooting “was part of the Dominican political folklore” as reported in Diario Libre.
El Dia reports that the convention was marked by disturbances, shootings, injured, stolen ballot boxes, suspension of voting in several voting centers and obstructing the work of journalists. According to the newspaper, when voting opened at around 8am nationwide in several centers only known followers of Miguel Vargas Maldonado were being admitted. The director of Noticias SIN, Manuel Quiroz said he would denounce the confiscation of footage recorded by Victor Vicente showing the shooting at the voting center. A similar incident was reported by Degnis de Leon of El Dia whose mobile phone was confiscated to erase the images of the violence that she had recorded on her cell phone.
Convención PRD deja al desnudo la realidad que vive ese partido