Leonel, Hipólito and Amable lead polls

Santo Domingo.- A poll published yesterdayby the Asisa Research Group predicts that president Leonel Fernández, ex-presidentHipólito Mejía and Amable Aristy Castro would win the internal nominationprocesses of their respective parties, the PLD, PRD and PRSC.

According to field work between 27 and 30December based on 1,900 surveys taken across the whole country, if president Fernándezdecides to run for re-election he will obtain 74%, a wide margin over his nearestchallenger Danilo Medina with 16.1%, as well as the First Lady,Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, who will get 7.9% while the otherpre-candidates will receive 2%.

If Fernández does not run, Medina would get 39.8%, Cedeño de Fernández, 32.5%, whileJosé Tomás Pérez would obtain 3.3%, Francisco Domínguez Brito, 2.3% and VP RafaelAlburquerque would receive 1.3% of the vote.

In the PRD, Mejía would beat Miguel Vargas Maldonado with 56% against 43% ofpreferences, with 1% of those surveyed undecided. If Aristy Castro puts himselfforward as a PRSC pre-candidate he would get 60% in the primaries, against 40% byCarlos Morales Troncoso.