After four days of short conversations with people here and there, seems like the “consensus” position among elites is that Zepherin Diabre’s UPC ascent has really challenged the CDP, and the restructuring that has been happening has meant there is more room for challenges at the local level, so there is a lot of ferment going on.  Good for the gradual transition to real multi-party politics, and bargaining by internal and clear party rules of the game is becoming more acceptable, as opposed to continued opaque influence-peddling.  Obviously the opaque stuff still has the upper hand, but the consensus seems to be that things are changing in the right direction.  More political space has opened.