Abinader defeats Mejia by a landslide in Presidental nomination bid

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - In Brief 27 Apr 2015 by Pavel Isa

---

Yesterday, the Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) elected its Presidential nominee for the 2016 general elections. According to the second bulletin released by the National Organizing Commission of the PRM convention, Luís Abinader defeated former President Hipólito Mejía by a landslide. Abinader obtained 70% of the votes while Mejía obtained 28%. The other two candidates obtained less than 2% of the votes. Although definitive numbers are yet to be published and it is unclear what the percentage of votes counted is, there is no chance for these numbers to vary. Participation in the convention looked weaker than expected and there were problems in some places where ballots and voters registry arrived late forcing significant delays in the beginning of the voting, and many voters could not exercise their right to vote because either they did not appear in the registry or the registry and the ballots did not arrive in time. However, overall the process was conducted in an orderly manner and is helping the image of the PRM, which in spite of the short time, it was able to do it reasonable well. Abinader’s victory represents a significant change in the political scenario since his nomination means that the opposition will have a strong candidate. Although relatively inexperienced and hasn’t yet developed a full-fledged government proposal, he has no problematic past, has a structured and composed discourse and signifies a political refreshment. The winners of this convention are Abinader and the PRM, and in addition to Mejía, the losers are: a) other opposition parties and figures such as Guillermo Moreno (Alianza País) because it is very likely that the opposition will r...