Gonzalo Castillo, Margarita Cedeño, Abel Martínez, Francisco Domínguez Brito, Maritza Hernández and Andrés Navarro are those who so far have aspirations to seek the candidacy for the presidency of the Dominican Liberation Party for the period 2024-2028.
This group, announced by the PLD general secretary last Sunday, has a history in public office and some of them are showing signs of seeking the presidency of the Republic.
Abel Martinez
The current mayor of Santiago is in his second consecutive term in this position, obtaining almost 50% of the votes cast during the extraordinary municipal elections of March 15, 2020 and being one of the few who obtained an archiving procedure by the Party Dominicans. Release.
Martínez also ranks third among the most voted during the recent Political Committee elections held in early March. Despite the fact that the administrator did not make his aspirations public, in Santiago, at the beginning of the year, a billboard was placed saying that “anyone who changes a city can change a country”, in a sincere motivation towards his aspirations.
Margaret Cedeno
The former vice-president of the Republic was Danilo Medina’s voting partner, when he won the presidency in 2016 with over 62% of the votes cast and also held the same position in 2012.
Cedeño also enjoyed wide popularity in the eight years of the first lady, and in the two administrations of Leonel Fernández she was responsible for the management of the state’s social policies and was also in the fifth position in the elections. last month’s political committee.
Although she never officially announced it, the former official has always been identified as a possible presidential candidate for the PLD. During the internal pre-campaign of the former official party, he came to warn his fellow PLD leaders that it was necessary to look for a third way, because the two existing ones, that of Fernández (who is no longer in the party) and that of former president Medina, meant “lose-lose”, while with her it would be “win-win” and then revealed that the Medina sector within the PLD proposed to her husband, then president of the PLD, to support Cedeño de Fernández as a unitary candidate, who would have been rejected by him.
There are those who support the theory that the level of acceptance decreased after she agreed to be Gonzalo Castillo’s voting partner.
Gonzalo Castillo was the replacement
Castillo was the person who defeated Fernández, by a narrow margin, in the October 2019 mayors (which led to the departure of the former president after claiming that there was an alleged fraud in the automatic voting equipment) and had an appreciation excellent during the seven – in the position of Minister of Public Works and Communications.
However, the former presidential candidate could barely exceed 30% in the presidential election, he was the protagonist of the “worst” electoral defeat of the PLD in recent history and was designated at that time as the “danilato” candidate.
The former official comes with the push to be the second most voted in the internal elections to determine the members of the political committee.
Dominguez Brito
The former Minister of Environment is the most voted in the elections of the political committee, but he was not elected on any of the occasions in which he competed to win that place in the former official party.
The farthest from behind
Behind these candidates is the former Minister of Education, Andrés Navarro, who also ran for mayor in October 2019 before retiring from the race and joining the support of Gonzalo Castillo’s candidacy.
The former foreign minister ran during the last domestic congress for the post of general secretary of the party, ranking third behind Mariotti and former executive vice president of the Dominican Corporation of State Electric Companies (Cdeee), Rubén Bichara.
Among the contestants was (by Mariotti) former Interior and Police Minister Carlos Amarante Baret, who competed equally in the primary past before retiring to support Gonzalo Castillo.
Amarante Baret expressed on his Twitter account that he has not yet made the official announcement because “it is too early to introduce the country in politics”.
Maritza Hernández was the only woman to run in the mayor’s office on October 6, almost two years ago, and at the time claimed to have been killed by “NATO” (a group that is supposed to work in the Political Committee and is the decision maker).
Hernández is a member of the PLD’s political committee and was Minister of Labor in 2016, but outside of it he did not gain much political traction.
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I need the approval of the central committee
At the time of providing the list, the PLD general secretary assured that it was not “final”, as these must be approved by the central committee of the former official party.
He needs to meet Danilo
A few months ago, the PLD secretary assured that those who aspire to the presidential candidacy must meet with him and the party president, Danilo Medina.
“Stakeholders need to meet with the party president and the secretary general, so the guidelines are outlined so as not to contradict the process of transformation and reorganization to choose the new middle authorities and party bases,” Mariotti explained in mid-month. March.