The PPH (Proyecto Presidencial Hipolito, internal party campaign promoting the President’s re-election) has accused PRD president and strong opponent of Presidential re-election Hatuey Decamps of discrediting the government at last week’s Socialist International conference in Brazil. PPH activists Tomas Hernandez Alberto, Julio Marinez and Carlos Gabriel Garcia were sent to the conference, apparently to frustrate this plan, according to a report in Hoy newspaper. The delegation travelled to Rio de Janeiro because they knew Decamps “would try to distort the Dominican Republic’s economic, social and political reality, so that the Socialist International issue a statement condemning Hipolito Mejia’s Presidential candidacy.” Their mission, explained Garcia, was to inform delegates to the conference of the country’s economic situation “in a transparent manner”. Although he was not successful, Decamps and his associates made every effort to obtain a statement condemning President Mejia, according to the PPH representatives. Listin Diario commentator Orlando Gil writes in his “Orlando dice” column that the President’s people have been searching media archives for a piece of videotape “like a needle in a haystack.” The videotape’s footage is said to show Decamps defying deceased leader Jose Francisco Pena Gomez. It is nowhere to be found at the state television station RTVD, however, and some believe the recording has been deliberately erased. Rumors have it that an unnamed person does possess a copy and that the PPH will use it as a latest salvo in their “dirty war” to present Decamps as an opportunist. Gil writes that the President’s supporters are hoping that this piece of archive film will show that “Decamps was not always as strong a supporter of Pena Gomez as he makes himself out to be.” His opponents say he has only taken on this mantle in his fight against the principle of consecutive Presidential re-election, to which Pena was strongly opposed. Hatuey Decamps himself is said to be unruffled, maintaining that the incident is already on record as described in one of Pena’s own books. Orlando Gil can be contacted at: orlandogil@codetel.net.do