The latest on the controversial electoral reform bill — Ley de Lemas, or Preferential Presidential Vote Bill– is that Chief Justice Jorge Subero Isa will today examine a bid by Senate leader Jesus Vasquez to have it declared unconstitutional. The bill, which has passed a first reading in the Senate where it arrived after being switched over from the lower chamber, has met with stiff opposition from many quarters.
The announcement comes at a time when it is reported that a group of 19 PRD senators are still insisting they will manage to ratify the bill in today’s legislative session, as Interior & Police Minister Pedro Franco Badia said on the CDN morning news show today. Congress adjourns on 13 February, which gives the Chamber of Deputies less than a week’s time to pass the electoral reform bill if and once it passes in the Senate. President Mejia has said that he would await for the Supreme Court opinion prior to signing the bill into law if passed by the Legislative Branch (Senate and Chamber of Deputies).
The reform bill would allow each political party to present up to five candidates under one banner for the Presidential elections and critics believe it is a cynical move by President Hipolito Mejia to scoop up votes from rivals such as Milagros Ortiz Bosch and Rafael Subervi Bonilla – votes which would otherwise not be cast if those candidates were excluded from the race. Subero Isa said that he would give the matter absolute priority and review the application today.
Vasquez is a PRD senator who has been perceived to be a supporter of President Mejia, along with Chamber of Deputies President Alfredo Pacheco, who has a similar political track record yet has timidly opposed the Ley de Lemas.
The government-intervened Listin Diario newspaper prefers to report the move by Jesus Vasquez as a way of “guaranteeing the law’s constitutionality” prior to the Senate vote. Hipolito Mejia’s rivals for the party’s Presidential candidacy Milagros Ortiz Bosch, Rafael Subervi Bonilla and Enmanuel Esquea Guerrero put in a similar application concerning the same law some weeks ago, but no ruling has been made in this instance.
Supreme Court of Justice Chief Jorge Subero Isa is an expert on electoral matters. He was part of the team of four judges – Cesar Estrella Sadhala, Aura Fernandez, Juan Sully Bonnelly and Jorge Subero Isa – who in 1996 organized the first Dominican election not contested on grounds of fraud. Dr. Subero Isa was later elected president of the Supreme Court of Justice on the reputation he built for this electoral feat.