Press reports today point to the fact that the PLD received 49% of the vote in the 16 May election from its supporters and an additional 8% from votes of allied minority parties. Although the newspapers are attributing the deciding factor in Sunday?s election to the support of these lesser-known political organizations, the issue is debatable, as had these minority parties not been there, their votes, in all likelihood, would have gone directly to the PLD candidate anyway and not to contending parties. As matters stood in 2004, voters unwilling to vote directly for the PLD were able to vote for an alternate minority party, such as in the case of the Partido Alianza por la Democracia, belonging to Max Puig, which received 84,566 votes (or 2.34% of the total), and Fuerza Nacional Progresista, belonging to Marino (Vincho) Castillo and Pelegrin Castillo, which garnered 38,676 votes (or 1.07%) for their outspoken positions within the opposition party and in Congress, despite always siding with the PLD. The exception to this hypothesis are the PRSC dissidents who publicly announced their support for Leonel Fernandez versus their own PRSC candidate, Eduardo Estrella. The Bloque Institucional Social Democrata, under the son of former PRD leader Jose Francisco Pena Gomez, received 98,278 votes, or 2.72% of the total, many of which could have been PRD followers who were dissatisfied with the Mejia administration and the actions of the PPH faction of the PRD.
Allied minority parties contributed very little to the PRD?s numbers. The PRD received 30.67% of the vote and the allied parties only added 2.98 points to the total. Of the 6 parties that threw their support behind the PRD, the PQD contributed the most, albeit a meager 27,520 votes.
In accordance with electoral law, five of the eight minority parties lost their official recognition for delivering an insufficient number of votes. These are the Partido Revolucionario Independiente (PRI), Alianza Social Dominicana (ASD), Fuerza de la Revolucion (FN), Democrata Popular (PDP), Nueva Alternativa (PNA), Movimiento Solidaridad Nacional (MSN) and Partido por la Autentica Democracia (PAD). A minimum 2% of all valid votes is required to retain a party?s official status.