As President Luis Abinader advances in governing the change he has promised the country, the party that brought him to power is sending notifications that he will repeat the same mistakes made by his political predecessors in the state leadership.
The first defect that is noticed in the most advantageous young man among the Dominican parties, the Modern Revolutionary (PRM), is generated in its political structure, ie its executive leadership, political commission, national committee and provincial and municipal presidents.
All members of this high command are absorbed by the state bureaucracy, leaving little room for partisan work, a practice that ultimately forms an abyss of disconnection from the political base and the “silent masses.”
“Moth Palace”
The top leadership of the PRM even includes the jovial former senator José Ignacio Paliza, 39, who as the party’s president holds the highest hierarchical position. He is now the administrative minister of the presidency. Also, the gentle Carolina Mejía, spokeswoman and coordinator of the executive functions of the party, became the mayor of the national district.
This experience is not new. This is what happened to the Social-Christian Reformist Parties (PRSC), the Dominican Revolution (PRD) and the Liberation of the Dominicans (PLD). Its leaders, Joaquín Balaguer, José Francisco Peña Gómez and Juan Bosch, warned against the leak that bureaucracy had caused to members and supporters.
The balms applied by the three parties that have ruled the country for the past six decades have always been violated by the so-called “palace moth”, which shielded the president and his officials at all levels, imposing a maxim in the political system: “the masses vote, the elites decide ”.
Dresser and change
PRM and President Abinader defeated the twenty years of PLD power in last year’s presidential, legislative and municipal elections. They raised the slogan: “Change works”, reminiscent of the “Violence-Free Change” raised in 1978 by the PRD, Peña Gómez and Antonio Guzmán to defeat Balaguer’s 12 years.
Abinader and the PRM catalyzed the rejection of the youth sectors and the upper middle class that led mobilizations and cacerolazos demanding an end to impunity in the noisy cases of corruption in the PLD governments. Also, care after the failed municipal elections in February and respect for the Constitution.
These phenomena came together to strengthen the idea of change, attrition and division of the PLD, as well as the criticized management of the Covid-19 pandemic by Danilo Medina, amid pressure from an electoral process related to the terms imposed by the Constitution.
PRM was founded on September 9, 2014, with joint leadership between former President Hipólito Mejía and Luis Abinader, after the last major division of the PRD in 2013. Neither of the two leaders has a position within the party. When Mejía was the last candidate for the PRD presidency in the 2012 elections, he brought Abinader as a voting partner. Then, already in the PRM, Abinader defeated Mejía with a big advantage in the conventions to choose the presidential candidate in 2015 and 2019.
In the first elections in which PRM participated in 2016, Abinader took Carolina Mejía, the daughter of the former president (2000-2004), as a voting partner.
The formula was defeated by the questioned re-election of President Medina, but the country was surprised that, with only two years of establishment, the PRM obtained 1,613,222 votes (34.98%) in those general elections.
In last year’s elections, the political organization, with Abinader again as a candidate, set another precedent in the country, by winning the presidency of the Republic in the first round, just six years after its establishment.
PRM obtained 2,154,876 votes (52.52%), to place the number one on the electoral ballot and to incidentally take control of the legislative and municipal powers.
Complex scenario
The main weakness attributed to the PRM and its new political leadership is reflected precisely in the party structure.
The organization submitted to the Central Electoral Council (JCE) in September 2019 an internal register with 1,303,779 registered persons, as a result of the intensive recruitment programs Premil I and II.
However, in the fervent internal primaries with a register closed on October 6 that year, where the presidential candidacies of Abinader and Mejía clashed again, along with other candidates Wellington Arnaud, Ramón Burgos, José Rafael Bueno and Ramón Emilio Concepción the total number of voters was 382,377 votes.
Abinader registered 283,393, and Mejía, who pointed out weak irregularities in the process, received 80,951 votes. After this defeat, the former president was left with a discreet turnout on the electoral stage at the age of 79. Yesterday, the former governor expressed that he has not authorized any leader to promote his candidacy by 2024. “Now is the time to join forces with President Luis Abinader and our government to implement the promises we have made. made to the Dominican people. Now is the time to give our best, with the best example, “he said in a statement.
Hipólito’s future
It is clear that Mejía, who would be 82 years old for the 2024 elections, could prepare for the presidential race of his 51-year-old daughter Corolina. His faithful disciple and influential Minister of Tourism, David Collado, 49, would also live up to expectations.
There is no recent data in the country about a full-fledged political leader hitting the withdrawal drum. Otherwise, Mejía would be the first. Bosch withdrew after the 1994 elections, after five failed attempts with PLD and known health limits.
For the time being, in the PRM, only the figure of President Abinader can be noticed in every official act, in every ceremony, in every inauguration, in every political meeting. Its saturated presence in public opinion in the first five months of administration seems a strategy to change the style of the National Palace.
Meanwhile, many of the leading Pyramid officials are still trying to decipher the governmental arts in oracles. “Mana” has fallen to help them, but we must overcome the obstacles imposed by the promised change, in the midst of the health crisis caused by Covid-19, the collapse of the economy, the persecution of corruption, the signing of a social pact, comprehensive tax reform, the electricity pact and other multiple twists.