Rumbo newsmagazine this week publishes the results of its first May 2000 electoral preferences survey. The survey asked Dominicans able to vote in the May 2000 election if the election were held today, for whom would they vote. Partido Revolucionario Dominicano candidate Hipólito Mejía received 47% of preferences, followed by Danilo Medina with 23%, and Joaquín Balaguer with 22%. At the time of the survey, 93-year old and blind Balaguer, who is expected to be the presidential candidate for the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano, had not yet been appointed a presidential candidate. He was last week by the minority party La Estructura. Danilo Medina, of the PLD, has invested millions in his campaign. While he is known as the PLD’s political strategist, and was Secretary of the Presidency of the Fernández administration, earlier surveys showed that he had less outside voter preference than Vice President Jaime David Fernández. Nevertheless, he was chosen in the primaries. Even party secretary José Tomás Pérez said the party would have to work harder when Medina was chosen. The Rumbo/Gallup poll seems to confirm this perception. Rumbo magazine points out that in the important National District (Santo Domingo), Mejía has 50% of electoral preferences, compared to 23% of Medina. Medina is banking his campaign on selling he will continue the work of the present government. President Leonel Fernández is the most popular man in the DR, but the Gallup poll shows this popularity has not rubbed off on Medina. The survey also shows that in the case of a second round (to win in the first round a candidate needs to have 50%+1 of the vote), Hipólito Mejía has a good chance at winning. Those that say they would vote for an alliance of the PLD-PRSC do not add up to enough to defeat the PRD and allies. In the 1996 elections, President Leonel Fernández was elected when President Joaquín Balaguer (PRSC) supported his candidacy versus that of PRD’s José Francisco Peña Gómez. According to the survey, only 58% of the PRSC voters would favor the candidacy of Medina, while 19% would favor that of Mejía, enough to give Mejía the presidency. The survey showed that the PRD is the most popular political party with 45% of preference, followed by the PLD with 26% and the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano with 18%. The poll was taken 9-13 September nationwide. Rumbo magazine does not detail how many people were polled.
