The Senate is meeting on Tuesday, 25 May 2021 and on the agenda is the vote to choose the country’s ombudsperson to be elected for six years or until replaced. The ombudsperson is described in the Constitution as “an independent authority with administrative and budgetary autonomy.” The basic duty of the person is to help safeguard the fundamental rights of individuals and the collective and diffuse interests established under the Constitution and the law, if they are violated by officials or agencies of the state, by providers of public services or by individuals affecting collective and diffuse interests. The organization and functioning of the ombudsperson is regulated by law.
The Senate is voting on a shortlist of three for the position. Two-thirds of the senators need to vote in favor of a candidate. This means that no single political party has sufficient votes to impose a candidate.
The candidates are independent Pablo Ulloa; former president of the Frente Amplio political party, Fidel Santana; and Henry Merán, the former spokesperson in Congress for Leonel Fernández, now of the Fuerza del Pueblo. Frente Amplio backed the aspirations of Luis Abinader of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) for President.
As reported in Diario Libre, Dionis Sánchez, representing the Fuerza del Pueblo, says that the PRM has 18 senators and an ally in the president of the Senate, Eduardo Estrella. This means the ruling PRM party is three votes short of the 22 votes needed to reach the two-thirds majority for the election.
Diario Libre points out that the Fuerza del Pueblo has nine senators, the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) has three votes and the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC) has one vote.
A paragraph in the Dominican Constitution (Art. 192) states that if the Senate does not appoint the ombudsperson and his or her deputies within the established term, the Supreme Court of Justice shall appoint them from the lists of candidates submitted by the Chamber of Deputies. The today president of the Supreme Court of Justice was a political activist for former President Danilo Medina of the PLD when he was appointed.
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El Dia
25 May 2021