The Organization of American States has had an insider look into the electoral and political system in the Dominican Republic over the past 10 months. After observing the aborted 16 February municipal election, the OAS mission was back to observe the successful rescheduled 15 March municipal election and then for the 5 July presidential and congressional election. In its report on the elections, the OAS recommends that the Dominican Republic revamp, renew and re-legislate many of the processes relating to anything having to do with elections.
The OAS electoral observer mission recommends that legislation in the country spell out as clearly as possible, the responsibilities and duties of each of the entities that intervene in electoral affairs, as well as the procedures, timetables and instruments to be employed in the course of an election. The Central Electoral Board (JCE), the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the Superior Administrative Court (TSA) and the Constitutional Court had to amend many articles in the Political Parties and Electoral Regime laws that had just been passed in 2018 and 2019 in time for the 2020 electoral campaigns.
The Mission of Electoral Observation sent by the OAS noted that the Dominican election system is cursed with the fragmentation of jurisdictional competencies that produce legal uncertainties, affects any sort of specialization and unification of criteria within electoral jurisprudence. The report says the system generates confusion within the political actors and makes it challenging to guarantee timely justice.
The report focuses on what should be allowed and what not in the political campaigns. It recommends that the “humanitarian aid” that made up a large part of the government assistance to the ruling party candidate in the 2020 presidential election be outlawed. The report looks into the multiple violations made, especially by President Danilo Medina and the ruling PLD political party in its quest to keep the Presidency of the Republic.
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OAS
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
OAS
Acento
13 July 2020