Penn Shoen Stagwell had forecast a tie between former President Leonel Fernandez and emerging politician Gonzalo Castillo in the 6 October primary of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). The polling company had forecast the numbers would be 46% to 46%.
On Sunday evening, with 99% of the votes in, the Central Electoral Board (JCE) vote count stream gave a very narrow victory in the PLD primaries to Gonzalo Castillo, the candidate endorsed by President Danilo Medina. Castillo had gotten an early lead in the vote count. Nevertheless, with 50% of the vote in by 5pm, the live feed total began to favor former President Leonel Fernández.
At that point, the vote was Gonzalo Castillo 363,029 votes or 47.66 to 364,536 votes of Leonel Fernandez, or 47.86% of the vote. Fernandez would keep a slight lead. At the 75% vote count, nevertheless, Fernandez’s lead began to level off. By 92%, Castillo was again leading with a minimal vote – 47.96 to 47.90% Fernandez (783,302 to 782, 335 votes) by 7pm. The last vote count, No. 12, gave Castillo the win with 48.62% of the vote to 47.38% of Fernández.
The JCE did not announce a winner, explaining all the votes needed to be accounted for.
Fernández did not accept the defeat. He called a press conference in the evening arguing anomalies in the process and that the vote count had been rigged. He attributed the irregularities to the source code of the software and to the installation of an algorithm that adulterated the results.
The president of the JCE, Julio César Castaños Guzmán in a press conference said the simultaneous primaries of the PLD and the PRM had been successful. He stated the JCE was open to reviewing the results. He said while only 60 voting stations were remaining, a winner would not be officially declared until all results were in.
Castaños Guzmán said the physical audit carried out revealed there were no inconsistencies. “These results make us proud the hardware, the software, the automated voting have worked well,” said the JCE president.
Castillo had closed his campaign saying he was the continuation of President Medina. President Medina in the closing event endorsed Castillo with a hug. In turn, Fernandez had closed his campaign with the support of Vice President Margarita Cedeño, his wife.
Commenting on the primaries for Telenoticias SIN, sociologist Rosario Espinal said that the primary is evidence again of the deep divide within the ruling Dominican Liberation Party.
In the parallel Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) primary, with 98% of the votes counted, Luis Abinader had received 278,486 votes or 74.05% of the total. His closest contender, former President Hipólito Mejía won 21.22% of the vote, or 79,811 votes. Mejía conceded defeat to Mejía.
The primaries served as a test run of the actual presidential, congressional and municipal elections scheduled for 16 February 2020 and 17 May 2020.
Read more in Spanish:
N Digital
El Caribe
Hoy
7 October 2019