VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #1938/01 1602033
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 092033Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5091
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHWN/AMEMBASSY BRIDGETOWN PRIORITY 1928
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS PRIORITY 0627
RUEHGE/AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN PRIORITY 0871
RUEHKG/AMEMBASSY KINGSTON PRIORITY 2599
RUEHPO/AMEMBASSY PARAMARIBO PRIORITY 1013
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE PRIORITY 4272
RUEHSP/AMEMBASSY PORT OF SPAIN PRIORITY 1685
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC PRIORITY 1532
RUCOWCV/CUSTOMS CARIBBEAN ATTACHE MIAMI FL PRIORITY
RUEAHLC/HQS DHS WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHUB/USINT HAVANA PRIORITY 0120
RUMISTA/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL PRIORITY

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 001938 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, WHA/EPSC, INR/IAA; NSC FOR FISK AND 
FEARS; USSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD; USDOC FOR 
4322/ITA/MAC/WH/CARIBBEAN BASIN DIVISION; USDOC FOR 
3134/ITA/USFCS/RD/WH; DHS FOR CIS-CARLOS ITURREGUI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV DR KCOR
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN ELECTIONS #14: POST-ELECTION REFORMS ON 
AGENDA 
 
REF: SANTO DOMINGO 1898 (NOTAL) 
 
¶1.  (U) This is the 14th cable in a series reporting on the 
Dominican Republic's May 16 congressional and municipal 
elections: 
 
Post-Election Reforms on the Dominican Agenda 
 
During the campaign President Fernandez asserted that the 
PRD-PRSC opposition was using its "tyrannical majority" in 
Congress for partisan advantage instead of national 
interests.  Now the electorate has handed his PLD its own 
congressional majority.  Dominicans will expect Fernandez to 
use his enhanced power to pursue the national agenda that he 
advocated in his campaign platform and further articulated 
since 2004. 
 
 
PLD Victory Confirmed 
- - - - - - - - - - - 
 
By June 8 the Central Elections Board (JCE) confirmed 
virtually all the election results that had been 
provisionally announced in late May, with only slight 
modifications.  The ruling PLD has its sweeping victory in 
Congress and an unprecedented advance in municipalities.  The 
PLD won majorities in both houses of Congress and a large 
plurality of municipal governments. 
 
The election ended the opposition's legislative dominance and 
for the first time gave the PLD a solid municipal base.  The 
Senate lineup will be 22 for the ruling PLD, 6 for the PRD, 
and 4 for the PRSC, giving the government a two-thirds 
majority necessary to pass constitutional amendments, on the 
expectation that the PLD's traditional discipline holds.  The 
House of Representatives will have 96 PLD members, 60 from 
the PRD, and 22 from the PRSC, giving President Fernandez the 
relative majority to pass ordinary legislation.  Of the 151 
municipal governments, 67 will be led by PLD mayors, 52 by 
PRD mayors, 28 by the PRSC, and 4 by minor parties.  The 
ruling PLD and its allies won 52 percent of approximately 3 
million votes cast; the PRD-PRSC alliance altogether received 
about 45 percent and independent minor parties the rest. 
 
Turnout of 56 percent of the 5.4 million registered voters 
set a record for mid-term elections. 
 
 
Reforming institutions 
- - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
As soon as the shape of the victory was clear, political 
leaders, civil society spokespersons, and religious leaders 
were proposing reform agendas for the new Congress to convene 
August 16.  President Fernandez called for a constitutional 
and institutional reform, based largely on the PLD's 2004 
presidential campaign platform -- an A-to-Z document of more 
than 150 pages published on the Internet.  The PLD political 
committee, chaired by Fernandez, set up two committees to 
advance reform proposals:  one led by presidential chief of 
staff Danilo Medina to serve as liaison with both houses of 
Congress, and the other chaired by Interior Secretary 
Franklin Almeyda to interface with municipalities.  Two newly 
elected PLD legislators told political officer May 25 that 
these committees demonstrated the president's seriousness in 
wanting to involve all of Dominican society.  Medina promised 
publicly that the PLD would not use its enhanced power "to 
make vassals of its opponents." 
 
Catholic University PUCMM rector Msgr. Agripino Nunez and 
 
others cautioned against rushing to amend the constitution, 
an impulse that in the past was often driven by short-term 
partisan motives.  Current Attorney General and senator-elect 
Francisco Dominguez Brito (PLD, Santiago) said any 
constitutional revision should be aimed at strengthening 
institutions such as the career judiciary, the National 
Judicial Council which chooses Supreme Court judges, the 
Comptroller General, and the Chamber of Accounts (analogous 
to the U.S. General Accounting Office). He advocated 
continuing his initiative of creating a career corps of 
prosecutors to assure more efficient administration of 
criminal justice. 
 
Influential figures in the main opposition PRD are also 
mulling reforms.  Meeting with political officer June 1, 
reelected Congressman Henry Sarraff (PRD, Independencia) said 
he believed Congress should convene a convention to rewrite 
the constitution  He thinks one goal would be to make the 
branches of government more independent.  The judges of the 
Central Election Board (JCE) and the Chamber of Accounts and 
some members of the National Judicial Council could be 
elected by a two-thirds vote of a joint session of Congress. 
Sarraff thinks, rightly, that the current system of 
appointment by two-thirds of the Senate allows imposition of 
partisan judges by the dominant party.  (The shoe is now on 
the other foot.)   He thinks the JCE should be reduced from 9 
judges to 5 to streamline its procedures, returning to the 
system of the mid-1990s.  (The reform that stacked the JCE 
with 9 judges and altered responsibilities was a short-term 
tactic to overcome an ornery head judge.)  The 1997 electoral 
law also needs revision, in his view. 
 
Such changes will be resisted by many legislators who depend 
on the traditional spoils system to build support.  More 
judicial independence would also reinforce the fight against 
corruption -- a trend that not all Dominican congressmen 
would welcome.  For example, one re-elected representative is 
Radhames Ramos Garcia of La Vega,convicted by the Supreme 
Court of alien smuggling and fresh from nine months of jail 
time; another newly elected legislator is Miguel Vsquez, a 
corrupt former migration director general in the Mejia 
administration.  Vasquez was convicted in March and sentenced 
to two years' imprisonment for having extorted USD 44,000 
from two of the illegal immigrants trafficked by Ramos 
Garcia, who at the time was serving as a consul in Haiti. 
 
Former attorney general Virgilio Bello Rosa recommends 
curbing the president's discretion to use public resources 
for partisan purposes, participate personally in 
congressional and municipal campaigns, or simultaneously hold 
a post as party president -- all of which he accused 
President Fernandez of doing.  Bello Rosa, like Sarraff, 
called for a constitutional convention to decide on these and 
other institutional changes.  He also urged the PLD to go 
beyond legal changes to attack high living costs, corruption, 
and illiteracy, 
 
President Fernandez outlined to the Ambassador his own views 
on reform, reported in reftel. 
 
 
Fighting corruption and electrical blackouts 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
Many hope that Fernandez will use his strengthened mandate 
both administratively and legislatively to address the 
nation's problems.  The opposition and civil society have 
been demanding that he act more vigorously against 
malfeasance in both the public and private sectors.  His 
establishment of a National Ethics and Anti-Corruption 
 
Commission in April 2005 appears to have been merely 
decorative.  A long-delayed bill to modernize public 
procurement and contracting procedures tops a list of meeded 
legislation that Congress has not yet acted on.  Many are 
calling for action to solve the longstanding structural 
problems of the nation's electric power system.  World Bank 
resident representative Christina Malmberg stressed in a May 
31 speech that both corruption and the uncertain electricity 
system undermine the economy's competitiveness. 
 
 
Implementing DR-CAFTA 
- - - - - - - - - - - 
 
The free-trade agenda is urgent, if the country is to 
continue attracting foreign investment.  Dominican officials 
are just beginning to acknowledge the list of laws, 
administrative measures, and practices that must be revised 
for DR-CAFTA to go into effect.  If talks with USTR drag out 
until past mid-August, as appears likely, the PLD's 
legislative majorities will give Fernandez the leverage to 
get the job done -- if he decides to resist special interests 
that still stand in the way.  The bill to require open 
tenders for most government purchases and contracts, already 
approved by the Senate but pending in the lower house, will 
need revision to fulfill the relevant DR-CAFTA requirements. 
Also needed are measures to safeguard pharamaceutical 
patents. to modify protection for Dominican agents of U.S. 
enterprises, and to ensure number portability among 
telecommunications providers. 
 
 
Investing in people 
- - - - - - - - - - 
 
Fixing the nation's broken public education and health 
systems are longer-term, often-postponed tasks that would 
benefit most Dominicans and boost development.  Dominican 
politicians of all parties regularly invoke this agenda.  The 
PLD victory deprives the ruling party of a number of fiscal 
excuses for 2007 in this regard. 
 
 
Reforming election procedures 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
Electoral law reform is on many voters' minds as the public 
waits for the JCE finish adjucating challenges to the 
election results.  On May 25 prominent NGO Foundation for 
Institutionalism and Justice (FINJUS) sponsored a roundtable 
that evaluated the 2006 electoral experience and proposals 
for improvement.  Those who spoke were unanimous in demanding 
more selective recruitment and better training of poll 
workers, so as to reduce delays due to poorly tabulated 
voting returns.  More than half the tally sheets prepared 
manually by the poll workers at the more than 12,000 
precincts had simple arithmetic and format errors that 
precluded entry of the results into the computer system until 
the sheets were corrected.  Participants rejected electronic 
voting as a solution, apparently out of a belief that 
Dominican voters are not ready for such an innovation. 
 
Participants reiterated the calls to change the selection 
process for electoral judges so as to ensure their 
impartiality, reduce their number, and either assign dispute 
resolution to a separate tribunal or allow appeal of such JCE 
decisions to the Supreme Court.  Some advocated reducing 
costs by holding all elections in the same year, instead of 
holding congressional and municipal elections in the middle 
of the president's term.  Several suggested an increasing 
 
sophistication among Dominican voters and a trend to vote for 
individual candidates rather than for party lists.   This 
might argue for separate ballots for Senate and House, as 
well as individual election of municipal authorities rather 
than using municipal party slates. 
 
Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez and Papal Nuncio 
Timothy Broglio separately called for JCE judges to be fewer 
and non-partisan, and the Cardinal, in his typical absolutist 
style, proposed limiting election campaigns to 15 days to 
save resources for more urgent social priorities. 
 
 
Restructuring political parties 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
Beyond the electoral concerns lies whether the law should 
address political party structures, to require more 
democratic internal procedures such as primaries for choosing 
candidates and party officials and to create a requirement 
for transparency in party and campaign financing.  National 
Coucil of Private Enterprise president Elena Viyella 
commented that the problems with incompetent poll workers 
mirrored the internal weakness of the political parties.  She 
advocated putting more substance into the campaigns, a point 
soon to be addressed on a website (www.conocer.com). 
 
The hollow authority of political parties is illustrated by 
the opposition PRD-PRSC alliance, which promised to promote a 
"national project" and instructed its candidates to announce 
their proposals in the campaign.  The vague talk of a project 
failed to galvanize voters.  The PRD held no more than its 
historical share, with 31 percent of the national vote for 
Congress and 33 percent at municipal level.  The third-ranked 
PRSC remained crushed. Its candidate scored 9 percent in 2004 
and this year the PRSC got 11 percent of the vote for 
Congress and 13 percent for municipalities. 
 
These parties will need a more convincing vision to recover 
their credibility.  In 2004 the PRD lost because of the vote 
against Mejia and his financial crisis; this time it lost 
because of the clear vote in favor of Fernandez and the 
improvements he has delivered. 
 
The PRD already has a hustling presidential candidate for 
¶2008.  Former public works secretary Miguel Vargas Maldonado 
published paid ads June 2 blaming "those who erratically led 
our party," implicitly calling for replacement of  current 
PRD president Ramon Albuquerque and secretary general Orlando 
Jorge Mera.  At a dinner for visiting former WHA assistant 
secretary Noriega on June 1, Vargas and senior PRD 
 
SIPDIS 
legislators waved the specter of loss of public confidence 
opening the way for a Dominican equivalent of Hugo Chavez 
(not a very likely scenario for the next few years).  Vargas 
has organized working groups in the PRD around the country to 
promote his own presidential candidacy in 2008.  Coming out 
of a Mejia cabinet not too long ago, he will have a challenge 
in convincing party regulars and the people that he is more 
than just old PRD vintage politics in a new bottle. 
 
¶2.   (U) Drafted by Bainbridge Cowell. 
 
¶3.  (U) This piece and others in our series can be consulted 
at our SIPRNET web site 
(http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo)  along with 
extensive other material. 
KUBISKE