Although the Ley de Lemas is said to be on hold, it shows no sign of fading from view. The National Committee for State Reform (Conare), whose director Tirso Mejia Ricart is one of the main movers behind the Ley de Lemas, has come out in defense of the proposed law. Conare has taken out advertisements in today’s press extolling the controversial legislation (also known as the Preferential Presidential Vote) for its judicial, democratic, representative and constitutional validity, and calling it an “innovative electoral system.” It describes how similar systems were introduced in Uruguay in 1910, followed shortly after by Honduras and Argentina, with the aim of ending intra-party rivalries. El Caribe reports that, according to sources in Congress, the law is now set to go to the Senate, despite having been rejected by diverse social, political and economic sectors. This follows its removal from the lower chamber after a mass boycott by deputies, which led the PRD’s Henry Sarraf, the main promoter of the law, to withdraw it from the Congressional agenda. The newspaper points out that the proposed law has a much better chance of success in the Senate, as 29 of the 32 senators are PRD members, and of those 29, 27 are loyal to President Hipolito Mejia. Hoy’s Francisco Alvarez Castellanos exclaims “Balaguer was right!” in reference to the famous statement by the late President that the Dominican Constitution was merely “a piece of paper.” Balaguer, dubbed the “Father of democracy” by his former adversaries and the current government, only changed the Constitution once during all his years in power. This government, however, will have amended it twice in six months should the proposed Ley de Lemas go through. Alvarez Castellanos is acerbic in his criticism of the President’s tendency to make adjustments to the Constitution – with the help of the “so-called honorable members of the Senate” – to suit his purposes.