Former President Leonel Fernández is running again for the Presidency, this time on the People’s Force ticket. His wife, Margarita Cedeño, who was his first lady, is now seeking a third term as Vice President for the ruling party, the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). Cedeño is the running mate with Gonzalo Castillo, the PLD presidential candidate who at last minute competed against Fernández for the position in the 6 October primary. Fernández was winning that primary near the 4pm closing time, when the automated voting count began to show a pronounced increase in Castillo’s votes. The JCE allowed voting to continue for several more hours. Fernández who had presided the PLD, then left the party. The automated voting machines would be outlawed for the presidential elections.
The People’s Force presidential candidate, Leonel Fernández, said on TV that he respects his wife’s decision, who decided to stay in the PLD. “I did not want to leave the PLD, I was compelled by the situation,” he added in the Channel 5 interview. He left the party after 46 years of militancy. He said he and his wife share different visions, but he respects her decision.
When questioned about what this political difference implies in his married life, he recalled the words by the Colombian presidential candidate Belisario Antonio Betancourt in his campaign closing speech. “Throughout this campaign I have been told that I cannot not even get my wife’s vote, what they don’t see is that I am so democratic, so diverse, so open and so plural, that I go to bed with the opposition every night,” Betancourt had said back then.
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Matinal
Listin Diario
27 May 2020