Dominican Republic Revolutionary Party holds convention

by Ramon Cedano
Caribbean Net News Dominican Republic Correspondent
E-mail: ramonce@tricom.net

Monday, June 13, 2005

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic: After several delays and postponements, the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), the Dominican Republic's main opposition force, was due to conduct its national convention Sunday in order to elect a new president, secretary general and organizing director, including as well as 21 of 30 vice-presidents, and some 70,000 other minor leadership posts.

Some 1,143,140 PRD members are registered to vote at 3,000 polling places spread out throughout the country, and at the party’s branches abroad in New York, New Jersey, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, New England, Puerto Rico, Panama, Venezuela, Montreal and Toronto

As tension intensified in the run-up to the convention, there are fears that allegations made by competing candidates concerning unwarranted exclusions and inclusions of voters from the party’s rolls may spoil the event.

Traditionally the party’s conventions have been marred by unchecked rivalry amongst competitors and even violence. The Convention’s chairman and former Dominican Vice-president, Milagros Ortiz Bosch, acknowledged there were some problems, but said they were working to solve them.

In a related news story, the Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez, stated that political parties in the Dominican Republic constitute a major source of corruption and added that they have “reached shameful levels”.

The Cardinal urged the parties to open their doors to young people for the sake of injecting new blood with a view to their regeneration.

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