Expectations that President Danilo Medina would announce his overt backing for a move to amend the 2015 Constitution to allow him to run in 2020 were not met. The influential Political Committee apparently is delaying its decision until circumstances improve.
Polls show that if the Constitution is amended, Medina would be the most likely PLD presidential candidate for the 2020 presidential election. If it is not amended, former President Leonel Fernández leads in the party polls. His wife, Vice President Margarita Cedeño is in third place among pre-candidates.
Speculating on what the delay in defining the PLD pre-candidates means, journalist Altagracia Salazar in her morning show Sin Maquillaje said that what is going on is that voter polls are telling the government that it is not in the same situation as it was in 2015 when the high popularity of President Medina then allowed it to steamroll constitutional amendments that enabled Medina to run for President in 2016. She explains that while in 2015 President Medina had a popularity of around 80%, today his popularity is at around 50%, with a trend for decline. Likewise, in 2015 few Dominicans opposed changing the Constitution to accommodate his reelection.
This has changed. A recent Asisa Research Group poll indicates that more than 70% of the population is against changing the Constitution. This is expected to be confirmed by the Gallup and Penn & Shoen polls.
The Political Committee meeting was presided over by President Danilo Medina, former President Leonel Fernández, and secretary general, Senate president Reynaldo Pared Perez. At the end of the Monday, 1 April 2019 meeting, the ruling party instead announced it would take actions to update its internal statutes to the new Electoral Regime Law and Political Parties Law. Arts. 7,9,13, 16, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49 and 50 need to be amended to comply with Political Parties Law 33-18 and the Electoral Regime Law 15-19.
The PLD Political Committee also announced that the party would allow for new members to register in their membership list. This contradicts the early announcement by the PLD that it would choose its presidential candidate in open primaries using the JCE voting list. Altagracia Salazar speculates this could mean the PLD may decide to hold primaries with its membership list, that President Danilo Medina has said needs to be cleaned up because it includes dead people. The PLD Political Committee is known to dictate what the PLD-majority Congress passes.
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Diario Libre
Hoy
2 April 2019