The proposed motion to reduce from 190 to 137 the number of deputies in the National Congress would mean more than RD$1 billion a year in savings for the Chamber of Deputies, a report in Listin Diario using data updated online to 2016. The reduction is proposed by President Luis Abinader to make the Chamber more efficient.
Diario Libre in its coverage on the proposal to reduce the number of deputies explains that the presidential recommendation would downsize the number of deputies to the regional average of one deputy per 98,000 inhabitants. Only Venezuela has more deputies than the DR, after the government of Maduro increased these in July 2020 from 167 to 277.
President Luis Abinader has said he will meet with the members of the ruling Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) to discuss the recommendations for Constitutional Reform before submitting these to the new legislature that starts on 16 August 2024. The ruling party is majority in Congress.
The ruling PRM has the number of legislators needed to pass the reform without needing a single vote of the opposition parties. Of the 190 deputies in the legislature that starts on 16 August 2024, the PRM and allies will have 151 or 79%. The number of legislators for the opposition parties are 27 for the Fuerza del Pueblo of former President Leonel Fernandez and 12 of the Dominican Liberation Party, presided by former President Danilo Medina.
Notwithstanding, Felipe Ciprian writes in Listin Diario that the motion to reform the Constitution is opening a Pandora Box. Diario Libre’s executive editor Anibal de Castro editorializes that people should not fear constitutional reform.
The Presidency is socializing its proposals before making the presentation to Congress upon the start of the new legislature on 16 August 2024.
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DR1 News
7 August 2024