Central Electoral Board (JCE) president Roberto Rosario is warning all the political parties contesting the May 2016 elections that the Board will reject any candidate list that fails to meet the requirement that 33% of the candidates should be female.
Rosario issued his warning on Wednesday, 9 December 2015, while telling Diario Libre reporters that the resolution had been approved by the JCE Plenary at a meeting held the previous day. He said they would also not allow parties to include women only as candidates for the least significant posts.
In the case of the municipal districts, Rosario specified that when the director is a man, the post of deputy director must be held by a woman.
According to Rosario, the parties have plenty of time to draw up their candidate lists and be able to comply with the approved resolution.
Rosario added that the JCE plenary had also approved what he called “reciprocal observers,” which means that they will only admit electoral observers from countries where the Dominican Republic has also served as an observer and under the same conditions.
Finally, Rosario announced that at their next meeting they would deal with a request to extend the deadline for the renewal of “cedulas” needed to vote in the 15 May 2016 election beyond 15 December 2015. The initial request came from the ruling PLD, and yesterday, Wednesday 8 December 2015, the main opposition PRM seconded the request.