The PRD?s hopes for holding on to power in 2004 are under threat due to internal party wrangles, according to an analysis of the state of the three main parties in El Caribe. All three have at some time in their histories been subject to a split, but experience has shown that no breakaway leader has ever gone on to immediate electoral success. All the PRSC pretenders to long-time leader Joaqu?n Balaguer?s throne ended up in political obscurity. Juan Bosch?s departure from the PRD cost him nine years in the political wilderness before returning as a major political force with his new party, the PLD. Jacobo Majluta left the PRD to form the PRI, which never took off as a political force. The PLD itself has also had its share of defections, such as that of Vicente Bengoa, Max Puig and N?lsida Marmolejos who went on to form Concertaci?n Democr?tica and Alianza por la Democracia (APD). The writer speculates that former Vice President and current PLD pre-presidential candidate Jaime David Fern?ndez Mirabal must have applied these lessons of history when he stayed on in the party despite losing the nomination battle in 2000 to Danilo Medina. He adds that the PRSC?s Jacinto Peynado and the PRD pre-candidates ought to be reflecting on this.