Prominent members of the Santo Domingo Accord (ASD), the longstanding alliance of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) with several smaller parties, yesterday rejected suggestions by Secretary of the Presidency Danilo Medina for reform of the Constitution. Speaking on the television program "Hola" on Monday, Medina had suggested that PRD might be persuaded to agree to a compromise on reform: allow presidential reelection in exchange for lowering the threshold which must be passed in order for a candidate to win the presidency in the first round of voting. The PRD in the past has called for lowering the 50% threshold in the Constitution for winning the presidency in the first round of voting. PRD’s fallen leader, Dr. José Francisco Peña Gómez, won the most votes in the first round of presidential elections in 1996, but just missed the 50% threshold. He lost in the second round after the Reformista Party (PRSC) threw its support behind the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) candidate, Leonel Fernández. The PRD worries that a similar scenario could be played out again in future elections. Medina said that the PLD might be willing to support a lower threshold if in exchange it could gain PRD support for a Constitution amendment to allow reelection of a President. After a political crisis sparked by fraud in the 1994 presidential elections, the Constitution was then amended to prohibit reelection. ASD Senators Fernando Alvarez Bogaert, Darío Gómez and Vicente Sánchez Baret all rejected the idea. Gómez, spokesman for the PRD bloc in the Senate, declared that the constitutional prohibition on reelection is "not negotiable." "Under no circumstances will [PRD] leadership negotiate that, less so in exchange for lowering to 45 or 40 percent" the threshold for winning in the first round. "Stop dreaming," he advised Medina. Sánchez Baret recalled that while alive Dr. Peña Gómez consistently opposed allowing presidential reelection, so PRD endorsing such an idea now would be repudiating what Peña Gómez stood for. Alvarez Bogaert, who is also the President of the Democratic Unity Party (UD), said that Dominican society has too many important problems to solve before it can even think about constitutional reform. Also asked about Medina’s idea, PRD Secretary-General and presidential precandidate Hatuey Decamps echoed the point made by Senator Sánchez Baret about it violating the legacy of Dr. Peña Gómez. He characterized the reelection idea as "negative for a democratic country like the Dominican Republic." It is a non-negotiable point and no time should be wasted seeking a constitutional amendment to this end.
