The ruling PLD party Political Committee is meeting in Juan Dolio this Sunday, 19 April 2015. Observers are skeptical that the two party leaders, President Danilo Medina and three-time former President Leonel Fernandez, who is the president of the PLD, will reach an agreement on who will be the PLD candidate in the May 2016 presidential election. Medina is the most popular PLD politician, but he is banned by the 2010 Constitution from running for office that year. His followers want Fernandez to support a change in the Constitution.
Writing on the topic in an op-ed piece in Hoy, sociologist Rosario Espinal answers the question of why polling companies consistently include President Danilo Medina in the polls when the Constitution bans him from running.
She speculates: 1) his high approval level to date; 2) in the Dominican Republic the Constitution is modified every few years, especially in regards to the article on re-election.
She points out that every single time the Constitution has been changed since the end of the Trujillo dictatorship, the re-election model has been changed. In fact, she adds, the last two changes were to benefit the incumbent President. This happened in 2002 during the government of former President Hipolito Mejia to allow him to run in 2004. Mejia failed to be re-elected that year. And then again, this time by former President Leonel Fernandez in 2010, so that he could return to the Presidency at a future date. President Fernandez has already announced his aspirations to be the PLD presidential candidate in the 2016 election.
Espinal writes that most of the PLD Political Committee members would prefer Medina to be the presidential candidate in 2016, in contrast with the situation in 2004 and 2008, when Fernandez was the favorite by far.
For Medina to run again, he will need Fernandez’s support.
To explain Fernandez’s 12 April announcement that he would run in the 2016 election, Espinal writes:
“If Leonel Fernandez refuses to back a constitutional change to enable Medina to run in 2016, then the winds headed his way will blow harder because the popular Medina will be out of the race. That is what the Leonel fans are counting on. And they also have a dismembered and divided opposition that will not be able to recover. ”
She concludes that Fernandez will be relying on the support of the majority political party to push him into the Presidency. “The dilemma for the PLD members is whether they should all come on board for the task of backing a candidate who has already been President on three occasions and has lost his charm.”