New candidate remaps Dominican Republic’s political landscape

Santo Domingo.- Luis Abinader’s dramatic entry to Dominican Republic’s political spotlight as the PRM party’s presidential candidate and mounting support from various social sectors could marshal the opposition against the ruling PLD party, whose decision to amend the constitution to allow president Danilo Medina’s reelection plunged it into an internal crisis.

Abinader’s win defines the opposition’s route ahead of next year’s elections and brings pressure to bear on the PLD internally.

The presidential candidate said he has already begun knocking on doors of all political and social organizations which have no affinity with the PLD to coalesce an opposition capable of defeating it.

Abinader, 47, and son of tycoon and politician Jose Rafael Abinader, has the advantage of having no marked political differences with Miguel Vargas, president and presidential candidate of the traditionally-opposition party PRD.

The two candidates could likely forge an electoral pact with the umbrella organization Convergence, which gathers several minority parties and social organizations that push Abinader’s candidacy.