Commenting on President Danilo Medina’s speech, PRM presidential candidate Luis Abinader says that the Dominican Republic does not need his re-election. Recent polls put the PRM as the country’s largest opposition party. Medina spoke after the PLD party pushed through a change to the 2010 Constitution in order to enable Medina to run for President in 2016. Polls had shown that he was the only PLD politician who could defeat the PRM in the 2016 election.
Abinader said that the Constitution change has negatively affected the people’s perception of President Danilo Medina.
Abinader said that contrary to what Medina has proposed, the country does not need re-election, but rather big and true changes.
At a press conference yesterday, Thursday 18 June 2015, he said the re-election announcement degraded the presidential status because it insulted the country’s intelligence, while ignoring the major problems that affect it. He said the change has harmed the political party system whose stability and strength are essential to democracy, which is based on popular sovereignty and not on a leader’s capacity to manipulate government branches, as has been the case in recent years.
The leading opposition candidate said that institutional weakening is evident in the ruling PLD and in the PRD that is now “reduced to its minimum expression” due to the re-election deals.
The PRM’s lawyers have submitted evidence that several government officials offered bribes in return for legislators’ votes in Congress.
In his comments, Diario Libre executive editor Adriano Miguel Tejada speculated that Medina’s speech was designed to rally his party’s full support for his nomination.
At the start of his term of office, President Medina stated that he would govern for four years. The 2010 Constitution permitted unlimited non-consecutive re-election, which has now been changed to only one consecutive re-election in the 2015 Constitution passed earlier this month.
http://www.luisabinader.com/home/post-title/
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2015/06/19/i1201431_abinader-pas-necesita-reeleccin.html
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2015/06/18/376963/abogados-prm-depositan-denuncia-contra-funcionarios-gobierno-por-supuesto-soborno
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http://presidencia.gob.do/noticias/danilo-medina-reeleccion-servira-para-profundizar-cambios-y-democratizacion