The Chamber of Deputies swore in this Wednesday Gustavo Adolfo Rodriguez as the Modern Revolutionary Party representative for the province of Valverde. Rodríguez replaces his wife, Saida Polanco, who fell ill with Covid-19 after winning the election on 7 July 2020 and died on 18 July 2020, before being sworn in.
The delay in the naming of the deputy to replace Polanco occurred after major protests to the continuing of the practice where wives, husbands or offspring “inherit” a legislative position.
In a previous highly-debated substitution of another deputy, the Chamber of Deputies rejected replacing resigning Josefa Castillo (Santo Domingo-PRM) with the runner-up Claudio Caamaño on grounds that a woman should be named to replace a woman. Instead, Castillo had lobbied for her son to replace her in the position.
In the case of Polanco, this principle of replacing a woman for a woman was not honored.
Civic society spokespeople said that the naming of family members to positions is a practice that denotes the Abinader administration’s promise of being “the government of change” and should be left behind. Civic society has argued that the position should go to the runner-up given that it is an elective position. The Political Parties and Electoral Regime laws allow the political parties to choose the replacement.
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N Digital
13 March 2021