In a plenary session on Saturday, 12 October 2019, the Central Electoral Board (JCE) declared the winners of the 6 October 2019 primaries carried out by the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) and the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM). The JCE announced 58-year old Gonzalo Castillo won the PLD primaries and 52-year old Luis Abinader the PRM primaries.
The definitive vote count for the pre-candidates who participated in the simultaneous primaries was published. The JCE released the numbers for the manual count at the presidential level of the PLD in all 7,372 voting stations in 157 municipalities and the National District.
The PLD primary vote was contested and a manual count was called. The new count is 911,324 votes for Gonzalo Castillo and 884,630 for Leonel Fernández, for a difference of 26,694 votes. This compared to the automated vote count of 911,923 votes to Fernandez’s 885,233. In the manual count, Fernandez received 603 fewer votes and Castillo received 599 fewer votes. The manual count prevails over the automated vote count.
Fernández had contested the earlier results that had put Gonzalo Castillo in the lead with 26,690 votes.
The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) had ruled against a legal motion submitted by Leonel Fernández last week. The former three-term President had asked the TSE to stop the JCE from declaring Gonzalo Castillo the winner of the primary until an forensic technical audit to the voting machines was carried out. The TSE ruled there are no irreparable damages to the declaration because Fernandez is in his right to impugn the results, but these first needed to be announced. As of Saturday, 12 October 2019, none of the Fernández delegates of the 7, 372voting stations had not formalized a claim of fraud at the presidential level.
Contrary to the challenges to the results in the PLD, in the PRM former President Hipólito Mejía almost immediately conceded defeat to Luis Abinader and announced he would support his candidacy. Those elections reported ended with Abinader receiving 283,393 votes for 74.11%, and Mejía 80,951 votes for 21.17%. The PRM primary was restricted only to registered members of the political party.
Meanwhile, former Minister of Public Works Gonzalo Castillo announced after the declaration by the JCE on the manual vote count totals that “this victory of the new blood is also a triumph of respect, decency and humility.”
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El Dia
14 October 2019