Dr. Emmanuel Esquea Guerrero resigned from his post of president of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), the leading opposition party. Esquea said he was resigning because he had fulfilled the promise made to the late José Francisco Peña Gómez to carry out a successful primary to choose the party’s presidential candidate in the next election. Political analysts say that Esquea is resigning because he is not happy with the agreements made by Hipólito Mejía, who won the presidential candidacy, with the losers of the race in order to guarantee party unity. The agreements would distribute posts within the PRD and in case of the winning of the 2000 presidential election. Esquea was supposedly offered the position of Senator of Santo Domingo, occupied by Milagros Ortiz Bosch, who has an agreement with Hipólito to run as his vice president on the PRD ticket. Esquea declined to travel with the PRD to attend the Internacional Socialista meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
