First salvoes after opposition party’s loss signal fierce showdown

Santo Domingo.- Just hours after several opposition PRD party deputies staged a shouting match in Congress yesterday, one of its dozens of vice presidents Julio Maríñez blamed their presidential candidate Hipólito Mejía himself for Sunday’s electoral defeat.

“The PRD’s defeat were from the very errors of Hipólito Mejía, who didn’t know how to take advantage of the PRD strength he received from Miguel Vargas, when he was proclaimed and administered an oath as candidate on May 8 last year,” Maríñez said.

He said when Mejía was proclaimed the candidate “he received a strong and unified PRD, with more than 25 points over the PLD (ruling party) in all the surveys, and the attitude of triumphalism on thinking that they had already won, as well as the stupidity of his statements against the domestic workers, on Trujillo, against the judges, and his eagerness to mistreat Miguel Vargas and his political team, cost him the victory.”

Maríñez noted that had Mejía boasted having broken with Vargas, that he had defeated him and would oust him from the PRD; and they violated the norms of the protocol of understanding which had been signed. “The PLD intervened so that Hipólito was the candidate, because they knew that if Miguel had been the candidate, the PRD would’ve won the elections with more than 55% of the votes.”