EThe Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) is playing one of the last cards on Sunday to redefine its leadership in the Dominican population, after last year’s electoral defeat and the disintegration of its political structure.
The task becomes more complicated for the PLD leadership, when the main leader, former president Danilo Medina, the judiciary continues to narrow its intimate circle of family members and former officials accused of corruption in the government he led in the two periods from 2012 to 2020.
Tomorrow, PLD will also have to choose in the middle of this complex panorama, at national and local level, the 300 new candidates who will complete a list of at least 955 members that the Central Committee will have.
This body will thus become the strongest internal mechanism in which the goals of transforming and strengthening the party’s identity will rest, after the earthquakes that shook the purple party in 2019.
His division and the subsequent loss of power at that time precipitated the convening of the 9th Congress Medina José Joaquín Bidó on October 11, which introduced changes to the statute, maintained Boschism as an official theory, created a political training center and a commission. of electoral justice for resolving conflicts in internal elections.
The changes included the confirmation of the 460 members of the Central Committee and its increase to about a thousand members, for the integration of legislators, mayors and municipal directors elected in 2020. In addition to provincial and municipal presidents, those proposed by the Political Committee and 300 new national candidates , local and abroad. Thus, he tried to send the company signs of renewal and rapprochement.
Expectations
Tomorrow’s gathering of internal votes is precisely the election of the 300 new members of the Central Committee, which generates tension and expectations that inconsistencies may be generated, the lack of transparency and the recent internal turmoil.
In the competition, 973 candidates will participate for 110 positions at national level and 190 positions at local level, for which 164,249 chairmen of the previously purged basic committees are called to vote, including members of the Central, Provincial, Municipal Committee and municipal presidents. electoral councils and intermediate committees across the country.
This selection mechanism has received numerous criticisms, as it has been described exclusively by leaders who have felt affected, and others have even opposed it before the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
It is noticeable that now PLD can no longer fail. In these votes, electronic voting was again privileged in the 374 polling stations installed in the country, with 381 tables in public schools, clubs, community centers and others, while about six thousand members and leaders will act in the party. operational.
He also drew attention to the fact that the automated equipment of the Central Electoral Council (JCE), which provides the material and technical facilities established by law, will contain the general electoral list, the register specific to each demarcation and the ballot papers at national level. level and digital premises.
The complexity of the process
Due to the complexity of the voting system, there are those who remember the terrible precedents of the internal mayors of the PLD of October 6, 2019, which caused its division, as well as the aborted municipal elections in February last year, when the automated system collapsed and affected, also the credibility of the party.
However, the electoral secretary of the PLD and member of the organizing committee of the IX Congress, Danilo Díaz, guaranteed that everything is under control, with the polling stations and municipal commissions formed, the materials distributed, the printed and digital register and the ballots .
“The results will be transmitted from the same polling stations. We will have one hundred percent of the results on Monday the 15th, but in the same night (tomorrow) we will get a high percentage, and in some places the final number “, Diaz guaranteed.
The regulation of the process also requires online consultation, so that voters can confirm the place of voting by placing the identification number at http://cc2021.org, while this weekend the traditional lines would be activated by phone, to provide this service in a direct and personalized way.
These internal elections will also have to follow a strict sanitary protocol to avoid contagion at polling stations, which involves the mandatory use of masks, washing hands with soap and water, applying a 70% alcohol solution, sanitizing spaces. And a maximum of eight people inside the seats.
Other challenges
Once this process is completed and the registration of the Central Committee is completed, which will become the party’s highest authority after the congress, new challenges await the PLD.
For example, the organization will immediately enter the election phase of the 35 members of the Political Committee, which will be in the hands of the newly elected Central Committee for the period 2021-2025. Those who are excluded from the PC will become part of an advisory committee.
After the division led by Leonel Fernández, the Political Committee was formed by the former president Medina; Temístocles Montás, interim president; Reinaldo Pared Pérez, general secretary; former Vice President Margarita Cedeño; former presidential candidate Gonzalo Castillo, Cristina Lizardo and José Ramón (Monchy) Fadul.
In addition, Francisco Javier García, Félix (Felucho) Jiménez, José Tomás Pérez, Abel Martínez, Alejandrina Germán, Alejandro Montás, Alexis Lantigua, Alma Fernández, Andrés Navarro, Carlos Amarante Baret, Carlos Pared Pérez, Danilo Díaz, Eduardo Selman, Euclides Gutiérrez Félix, Francisco Domínguez Brito and Jaime David Fernández Mirabal.
Also, José Ramón Peralta, Lucía (Yomaira) Medina, Radhamés Camacho, Rubén Bichara, Simón Lizardo, Julio César Valentín, Radhamés Segura, Miriam Cabral, Ramón Venrura Camejo, Robert de la Cruz, Lidio Cadet and Melanio Paredes.
He never
Another important issue being debated in the main opposition party is that the Central Committee will also have in its hands the election of the PLD chairman and secretary general.
Given that no one has expressed a presidential aspiration in this process, the idea has been held that the important position is reserved for former President Medina, who never held it and who became the PLD’s top leader after former President Fernández left. .
This is not the case with the General Secretariat, which was also vacant after the resignation of Reinaldo Pared Pérez on January 13 after taking office in 2001. Several PLD leaders aspire to this position, such as Rubén Bichara, Andrés Navarro, Luis de León, Charlie Mariotti, José Laluz, among others.
For both the President and the Vice-Presidents and the Secretary-General, the new statutes forbade them to hold state office or to be candidates for elective office, as a way of consolidating internal organizational activities, and that they would otherwise have to resign. party to execute.
It is understood that these restrictions would not affect former President Medina in the event of the party holding the presidency, as the Constitution prohibits him from ever running for the presidency and vice presidency of the Republic.
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requirement
The PLD approved the reduction of the number of partisan members from 10 to 5 years, as one of the requirements to be a member of the Central Committee, with the intention of offering more opportunities to young people.
Alternation
The heads of the party secretariats will be elected for four years, and cannot remain for more than two terms, in the interest of guaranteeing alternation at the levels of the party leadership.