Although the Dominican Republic has 19 parties, in these elections only 6 of them are represented in this area. I would love to be able to tell you the difference between them – but the parties here are not like those of USA or Europe – in other words you cannot say which is left, nor right nor centre!!
The ones represented here are:
PLD – Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana (this is the current party in power)
PRD – Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (the scond biggest party)
PRSC – Partido Reformista Social Cristiano
PRI – Partido Revolucionario Independiente
MIUCA – Movimiento Independencia Unidad y Cambio
PDI – Partido Democracia Institucional
There are 6 candidates for Senator, one from each of the above parties. It appears to be a 3 horse race with the following candidates not in the race at all.
Pablo Manuel Santana from PDI
José Alberto Rafael Lambert MIUCA
Gabriel Gonzales Payano PRSD
The main contenders are:
José Maria Sosa from the PLD. José Maria is the current Diputado from San Pedro de Macoris. Although from humble beginnings in Los Llanos, he is now very well connected! He is married to Alejandrina German who is the current Minister for Women, and before that was the Minister for Education, in the previous Leonel Fermandez government. José Maria lives in Santo Domingo and has a weekend retreat in Jarabacoa.
Sergio Antonio Cedeño from the PRD is currently the Diputado for Altagracia and has a house in Higuey and one in San Pedro. He actually used to be the Mayor for San Pedro from 1998 – 2000 but resigned, it was said for health reasons.
These two appear to be neck and neck and at the moment there is no clear front runner. They are having a royal battle in the press, with Cedeño calling José Maria a leech and José Maria calling Cedeño a political Sanky Panky!!!
The third candidate in the running is Alejandro Williams, who is the current Senator from San Pedro. He has a house near Jumbo but appears to spend most of his time working as a dentist in New York, which caused a big scandal last year. He was due to run against José Maria as PLD candidate for Senator but was expelled from the Party as he did not register as a candidate in time. So now he is running for the PRI.
So those are the top three candidates for Senator. The next report will focus on the candidates for Mayor of Juan Dolio/Guyacanes.