Despite Chamber of Deputies president Abel Martinez pushing for the Political Parties Bill to be passed promptly so that it could begin to be applied, opposition from PRM and PRD legislators and others prevented it from receiving the approval of a required second reading for it to pass in the Chamber of Deputies. From there it will move on to the Senate.
El Caribe reports that two paragraphs were added to establish a ban on using assets and public funds for personal advantage or of candidates proposed by government officials as of the opening of the political campaign, as well as another that holds the Central Electoral Board (JCE) responsible for organizing, directing and arbitrating the party primaries. The provision that established that 80% of the funds needs to be distributed to the parties that obtained 5% of the total vote has also been changed to one that sets the funds provided by taxpayers to be equally distributed to rival political parties.
Another change was to categorize the bill as an ordinary law instead of a fundamental law. A fundamental bill requires two thirds of the vote to pass. This was rejected by Carlos Gabriel Garcia (PRD) who said that Art. 112 of the Constitution established the category of the law as a fundamental law.
Legislator Guadalupe Valdez (APD-National District) complained that the bill on political parties that was approved in a first reading in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday, 3 March 2015, does not include restrictions on the amount of money that candidates and political parties can receive.
She also complained gender equality in politics has been violated. Valdez said that the way that it was approved undermines the progress made in the 16 years of discussions for a bill aimed at regulating political practice in the country. Valdez was speaking on the El Equipo TV show on CDN, with Altagracia Salazar, Franklin Guerrero and Anya del Toro.
Valdez said that what was approved in the first reading was an affront to the democratic rights of citizens. She said that based on the version that was approved, the political parties do not need to be accountable to taxpayers. In the Dominican Republic, by law billions of pesos of taxpayer money is channeled to the political parties.
A second reading will be held on Thursday, 5 March.
As reported, the first reading received the vote of the deputies of the ruling PLD party that holds the majority in the lower chamber. The legislators representing the PRD and the PRM voted against the approval.
El Caribe reports that the first reading passed with 93 votes in favor and 63 against.
Legislator Nelson Arroyo of the Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) and politician Eduardo Estrella, president Dominicanos por el Cambio (DXC) accused the ruling PLD party of making a made-to-measure suit for its own interests.
An editorial today in Diario Libre urges PLD legislators to think over the matter. “One needs to ask why the PLD needs to pass a ill of political parties that does not improve the transparency in the upcoming election, nor advances the cause of women in politics nor impedes that drug trafficking money play a role in the elections?” asks the newspaper’s executive editor, Adriano Miguel Tejada in the editorial. He says even if the bill is signed into law it could be contested in the courts affecting its application in time for the 2016 election.
http://acento.com.do/2015/politica/8227786-ley-de-partidos-aprobada-no-regula-cantidad-ni-origen-dinero-para-campana/
http://www.diariolibre.com/opinion/2015/03/04/i1039821_pinsenlo-mejor.html