The two rival blocks of Presidential pre-candidates for the ruling PRD have called on the party’s National Executive Committee (CEN) to convene party conventions that will determine the procedures for the selection of their ultimate Presidential candidate. The two meetings will differ on one key point, however – one will allow Presidential re-election and the other excludes it. Vice-President Milagros Ortiz Bosch, Rafael “Fello” Subervi Bonilla and Enmanuel Esquea Guerrero have accepted President Hipolito Mejia’s inclusion as a pre-candidate, while their erstwhile fellow opponents of Presidential re-election, Hatuey Decamps, Ramon Alburquerque, Rafael Flores Estrella and Jose Rafael Abinader are persevering in their anti-re-electionist stance. Hatuey Decamps spoke of “dark clouds gathering over this country and the PRD, with the intentions of destroying it,” but went on to insist that the President would not succeed in being re-elected. Decamps and his associates remain open to dialogue, he affirmed, as long as it led to a “non-re-electionist consensus”. The convention committee for Saturday’s meeting of the Mejia camp includes big names such as Peggy Cabral, Hugo Tolentino Dipp, Ivelisse Prats de Guerrero, William Jana and Virgilio Bello Rosa. Hugo Tolentino Dipp, the former Foreign Minister who resigned earlier this year over the President’s support for the US action in Iraq, said that, although the President had the right to take part in the convention, he ought to relinquish his re-election ambitions for the sake of the party and the country.