The Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) convention opened on Saturday, 18 November in Santo Domingo. During the three-month affair that ends 26 January 2001, the third largest party seeks to define where it’s at and where it’s headed. On the agenda are decisions regarding the in depth transforming or not of the structures of the party, the work style and ethics, and support to the bases. The party is looking within after having lost the 1998 congressional and municipal election and the 2000 presidential election. The party seeks to better position itself to participate in the 2002 congressional and 2004 presidential run. The party that reached the presidency for the first time in 1996, also needs to define whether the renovation of the party will adhere to the teachings of party leader and founder, nonagenarian Juan Bosch, or whether the party will adopt the social liberal model proposed by former candidate to the presidency, Danilo Medina. The PLD was founded in 1973, when Juan Bosch differed from other members of the PRD, a party of which he was also one of the founders.
