Wellington Arnaud, leader of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), has the experience and political ability of an 80-year-old, even though he is 45.
At that age, he has been a deputy twice to the National Congress and has held positions as campaign manager for the PRM in 2016 and responsible for President Luis Abinader’s project in 2020 for the entire southern zone.
While he was a member of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) he held various positions, from president of a base committee, president of the Revolutionary Youth to member of the Political Commission.
In the current situation and in view of the convention for party renewal, he affirms that he has no aspirations beyond contributing to the success of President Abinader in his management of government and that he can continue in office for another four-year term. Despite this, his name appears among those who would become the Executive Director of the organization.
Based on his extensive experience, he affirms that the PRM is experiencing a moment of unity that he had not seen in that political sector and that President Luis Abinader is the figure who has achieved that level of cohesion.
“Both the traditional leadership and the emerging leadership are all unified in supporting President Luis Abinader, and an example of this is the modification he made to the party’s statutes to open the way for him and supporting a new administration from 2024,” said Arnaud. in the special interview of elCaribe and CDN.
“The party has just now carried out a spectacular event to adapt our statutes and open the way for the president to continue doing a job as the people are perceiving, as Dominican society wanted, that every peso be invested to improve quality of people’s lives and he is precisely a president who works 17 hours, which is a great motivation for all the teams and for me it is a privilege to belong to this government team. That’s the approach we have,” he commented.
He added that it is not that there are no other leaders in that party, but that now the largest is held by President Abinader. “It’s not that there aren’t others, it’s that he is the greatest leader and we are all supporting him so that he can continue managing it so efficiently that the population values it,” he said.
Arnaud affirmed that the approval of the management of the government of President Abinader rose 70%. “The party is almost at 50%; In other words, we are in a good moment, there is unity in the game, we learned from all the things of the past so that we don’t make those mistakes now”, observed Arnaud.
“Obviously we cannot make the same mistakes, the sample is the unified party, when had that been seen? the unified party so that the president can be re-elected without problems”, commented the also director of the National Institute of Potable Water and Sewage (Inapa).
Asked about leaders who have a critical discourse towards the organization and government management, he stated that this will be resolved internally.
“There are always vestiges and we are going to solve these things internally, there is maturity in the game; we have such a great conscience of the unity of the party, that you listen to anyone fighting if they speak against his government; there they made a proposal, Catalino made a public statement and what the assembly did, everyone was against, three voted, he and two more who were with him; there may be people who are not aligned yet; there is a president with the government aligned and the one who does not do things well, we break it, ”he warned.
He considered that it will not be necessary to hold primaries to elect President Abinader as the PRM’s presidential candidate for the 2024 elections. “The entire leadership is supporting him, we are all supporting him,” he stressed.
Asked about who should occupy the presidency and general secretary of the PRM for the convention in the middle of this year, he maintained that the current authorities, José Ignacio Paliza and Carolina Mejía, have done a great job at the head of that organization.
“The party authorities are doing well, I want them to continue there. I agree, they have done very well, I want to support the president and the party”, said the leader of the official party. Both Paliza and Carolina have stated that they would have no problem continuing in their positions, but that they have not yet made that decision. The statutes of the PRM prohibit its authorities from aspiring to the Presidency.
Regarding re-election, he thinks that these are other times
Asked about the statutory change that left behind the anti-reelection culture developed by the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and that in its version of PRM changed that tradition, Arnaud said that he, in particular, has always been a champion of the North American model of two periods. He also added that four years is a very short period to execute a government plan due to the slowness of the State. “I have always said it, in the statute of the PRD at the time it had it; what I want to say is that life is dynamic and peoples mature, when values, history is there; Although the history of the PRM is short, it is a history with an important historical content, as it was born in the context of an unequal struggle, of a power that was imposed, the PRM was born to save democracy”, commented the PRM leader.
