Dominican Rep politics: Bill declaring the need to allow re-election introduced in the Senate

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - In Brief 01 May 2015 by Pavel Isa

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In a bold move, yesterday 13 Senators introduced a bill in the Senate declaring the need to amend article 124 of the Constitution and calling for a joint session of the Senate and the House in order to introduce changes. The amendment would allow an incumbent President to run for re-election and would forbid him/her to run again for life. Approved in 2010, the Constitution of the Dominican Republic does not allow incumbent Presidents to run for re-election but allows former Presidents to be nominated. It is a surprising move since it is clear that so far, supporters of the re-election of President Medina do not have to votes to pass the amendment. 76 members of Congress who support the nomination of former President Leonel Fernández have expressed their intention to reject the proposal, as well as more than 80 members of Congress from opposition parties. In our view, the intention of introducing the bill, which could be easily be approved since the votes required are less than those needed for the amendment itself by the joint session, are the following: a) to show that the President’s supporters are serious in their intentions, b) to take full advantage of the public support the President currently enjoys before it gets eroded (something we perceive is currently happening), c) to shock members of Congress that are resisting and get as many of them as possible on board, weaking resistance and d) to make it even more clear that Fernández and his followers are disobeying the decision of the Political Committee to support the amendment. In that way, Fernández will be seen as the direct responsible for splitting the party and for risking the 2016 elections since, as of tod...