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On 28 August the ruling Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) officially installed Danilo Medina as its presidential candidate for the 20 May 2012 general election. Medina launched his campaign on a positive note, promising to create jobs and reduce poverty. Most Dominicans, however, fear that the campaign will degenerate into a slanging match between Medina and Hipólito Mejía from the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) who was president from 2000 to 2004.
The early opinion polls put Mejía comfortably ahead of Medina (48% to 33%, according to a Gallup poll on 26 August). Other polls put Mejía at over 60% support. This is unnerving for the PLD which had been counting on its successful economic record (7.5% GDP growth in 2010 and comparatively low inflation) to see its man home. Medina announced he and his government would focus on poverty reduction, creating employment and combating crime. Medina said he will govern “with the heart for the poor and the whip for the dishonest”.
Specifically, Medina promises to create 400,000 new jobs, mostly in agriculture, during his term in office. He is also promising to help cooperatives. Medina’s pitch is that he will focus on boosting rural incomes and so reduce the disparity between urban and rural life.
Mejía is feeling confident enough to start patronising the PLD. He welcomed Medina as his rival and said that neither Medina nor the current president, Leonel Fernández, were his enemies. Mejía promised to run a clean campaign provided the PLD did.
The PLD’s big concern is that Mejía defeated Medina in 2000. Unlike Mejía whose vice presidential candidate is Luis Abinader, Medina and the PLD have left that slot open. One theory is that the First Lady Margarita Cedeño, would be imposed as Medina’s running mate. That may still happen even though Medina said that his vice-presidential candidate would be chosen through “market research”. Medina said “there is no rush” to decide who will be his running mate and there are “many pre-candidates aspiring to accompany me in the presidential ticket...to choose the vice-presidential candidate we will carry out market research studies to see who is better placed in the current political juncture.”
Medina is also trying to heal his long-standing breach with President Fernández, hailing the economic record of the Fernández governments (which contrasts with the economic crisis Mejía bequeathed the first Fernández government) and Fernández’s personal leadership. During his acceptance speech, Medina embraced Fernández five times. This must have taken some self-control on both men’s part because they have had long had rocky personal relations and Medina’s bid for the nomination was in the teeth of Fernández’s opposition.
Although Medina wants Fernández’s support, he also wants to show voters that he is different and will rule in a different way. His pitch is that his government will be more bottom-up than Fernández’s centralist, top-down approach.
The general assumption in Santo Domingo is that Fernández will want another run at the presidency in 2016. The question is whether he will find it easier with Medina in office or the PRD’s Mejía.
Inflation: The big economic worry is rising inflation. In July the monthly index of consumer prices rose by 0.85%, bringing the lagging rate for the past 12 months to 9.87%. At the beginning of 2011, the rate was just over 6% a year.
The central bank reported that the number of tourists arriving in the month of June was down, year-on-year, for the first time since 2007. For the first seven months of 2011, however, the number of tourists arrivals is up by 3.7%, year-on-year, at 2.71m.
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