All the local newspapers carry headlines regarding ‘open’ or ‘closed’ primaries for the upcoming, 2020, elections.
The Internet website 7 Dias.com helps understand the issues in a feature. The first question that is answered is “Just what are primaries?” This answer is relatively simple: this is the voting process to select a party’s candidates for the presidency, Congress, and city governments. This is a different process from the election of a party president or general secretary.
Many years ago primaries were unheard of in the Dominican Republic and it was not until the rise of politician José Francisco Peña Gomez who helped establish the primary system as a way of dealing with the major problems within his party, the PRD.
Too often, the selection process for presidential candidates as well as other candidates has sparked major violence including death. As a result of the struggles people change parties when they are not selected as a candidate for office. Years ago, Peña Gomez felt that primaries would help to resolve a lot of the back-room deals and reduce conflicts between potential candidates while promoting a democratic process within party loyalists.
So, just what are open and closed primaries? An open primary is a voting process whereby any person can vote for the candidates of any party, as they so choose. This is regardless to intention to vote for that candidate in the actual election. A closed primary is that in which only registered members of the party’s voting list or a voter who can show his or her party membership through registration records are allowed to vote for candidates of that party.
The primaries held in the Dominican Republic have, so far, been “semi-open”, whereby the political parties use the voting rolls of the Central Electoral Board (JCE) and allow only those members registered to their particular party to vote.
Just recently Citizen Participation, a local civic society group, has come out in favor of “closed” primaries together with the legislators who are aligned with Leonel Fernandez. The Senate, nevertheless, passed on Wednesday, 18 April 2018 the Political Parties Bill that enables open primaries. These are backed by legislators that are aligned with President Danilo Medina.
Likewise, an interview in El Dia on 18 April 2018 with Ramón Tejada Holguín, a member of the communications team of the Medina administration, defends the “simultaneous open primaries” mode chosen by the Senate to become law. He says that by making them simultaneous each person can only vote once and for one candidate. He says that it is unlikely that a political party would send people to vote for other candidates, because it would reduce the number of votes their own candidates get.
Detractors say that political parties with big budgets would be able to decide who their opponents in other political parties will be by sending voters to vote for the weaker candidates of the opposition parties. PLD legislator Juan Carlos Quiñones, a backer of former President Leonel Fernández, says the open primaries contributes to an increase in political patronage and the use of illegal funding for the campaigns. He said if passed, the country would be subject to four intense national electoral processes to elect the party candidates, the municipal elections, the legislative election and the presidential election.
The bill that authorizes open and simultaneous primaries and that passed on Wednesday, 18 April 2018 in the Senate now goes before the Chamber of Deputies, where President Medina reportedly has 72 loyal deputies, former President Fernandez 34. A vote of two-thirds of those present for the session is required to pass the motion. But a minimum of 50% + 1 deputy, or 96 deputies of the 190 total need to be present. Medina has most of the cards, because for the bill to be rejected all the Fernandez loyal deputies plus all the opposition deputies would need to be present, as explained today in El Dia. Already, Victor Bisono of the PRSC has said he will give his vote for the open primaries, despite the party position being to vote against the mechanism.
Read more in Spanish:
7 Dias
El Dia
El Dia
Diario Libre
19 April 2018
