In four and a half months time, Dominicans will go to the polls to elect a president, members of congress and municipal leader. This year’s 15 May election will be the most complex in years. It will be the first time in 20 years that the presidential vote is together with the legislative and city government elections.
One of the innovations in this electoral process is that political parties have been relying much more on internal polls instead of primaries for selecting the candidates. Paradoxically however, this time around the media has not released the results of major polls as in previous electoral years.
At present there are still many candidates to be decided in the new configuration where the ruling PLD is allied with the minority PRD, and the main opposition PRM is allied with the minority PRSC. The PRM has postponed its primaries several times, and little is known about the processes being carried out by the minority parties.
A decision from the Central Electoral Board (JCE) is still pending on whether there will be more deputies or not, due to demographic growth, but the PLD has objected to their proposal for more deputies. There will also be the novelty of an automatic vote counting system that will scan the ballots.
Overall, the electorate will be voting for more than 4,000 posts. There are 235 municipal districts and 158 municipalities. The country is divided into 48 circumscriptions to elect representatives for the Chamber of Deputies, where 178 deputies will be elected for the provinces and the National District, five national deputies and seven who represent Dominicans living overseas, for a total of 190. Then 32 senators 158 mayors and 158 deputy mayors will be elected, as well as 1,164 councilors, 234 directors and 234 deputy directors for the municipal districts.
The immediate problem is to select the candidates, a complicated process with so many coalitions in place. In some areas independent candidates will also be running.
The PRD and the PLD have agreed to run as allies after spending the last 20 years as the two main rival parties. The second major coalition is between the PRM, a dissident branch of the PRD, and the PRSC, also opponents in previous elections.
Read more in Spanish:
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2016/01/02/402403/rd-a-4-meses-y-medio-de-unas-elecciones-complejas
http://eldia.com.do/la-ausencia-de-elecciones-en-los-partidos-para-escoger-candidatos/
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/politica/la-jce-agotara-en-enero-vitales-plazos-legales-para-elecciones-NA2332852
