{"id":130552,"date":"2019-08-29T16:39:25","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T16:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ny1.dr1.com.do\/wordpress\/?p=130552"},"modified":"2019-09-02T13:34:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T13:34:57","slug":"here-we-go-again-to-reform-or-not-to-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/2019\/08\/29\/here-we-go-again-to-reform-or-not-to-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Here we go again: To reform or not to reform?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Talk about reforming the 2015 Constitution is being kept alive in the media in the weeks leading up to the 6 October primary. In the first half of the year, social, political and even international pressure impeded President Danilo Medina from pushing through constitutional reform to legally enable his running for a second reelection. The story did not end there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little by little, the Medina followers have been gathering support from leading persons and entities and are finding reasons why the National Constitutional Assembly should be convened and priority be given to constitutional reform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest argument for the \u201cneed\u201d to modify the Constitution is to unify the municipal, congressional and presidential elections to save costs and complexity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other points that have been made are to eliminate the much-criticized Attorney General participation in the National Council of the Magistracy. The inclusion of the Attorney General dates back to the 2010 Constitution promoted by former President Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez and has enabled the President to have the majority in deciding who\u2019s who in the Justice Branch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other sectors say that the reform could be used to pass a change that would enable the President to win with less than 50%+1 of the vote. This would make it easier for a weaker candidate to win. Furthermore, Danilo Medina followers are keen on reform that would enable President Danilo Medina to run again for another eight years as of 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first to again bring up the constitutional reform issue were top members of the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC), then former President Hip\u00f3lito Mej\u00eda. More recently Pedro Brache of the National Council of Business and even the Adriano Miguel Tejada, executive editor of Diario Libre, have added their voices in favor of constitutional reform. e<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vice President Margarita Cede\u00f1o said on Wednesday, 28 August that she is against the unification in time for the 2020 general election. Nevertheless, she said she was open to discussions for this in the future. \u201cI don\u2019t think we should be changing laws at will. What is important is that the laws be made and that they be made correctly,\u201d she said. \u201cLaws need to be respected,\u201d she said, when speaking before the opening of a conference on telecommunications at the Centro Cultural de las Telecomunicaciones in Santo Domingo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elections will take place in seven months. \u201cOnly now is when they noticed the inconvenience?,\u201d asks news commentator Huchi Lora. Lora says he among many others criticized the provisions now cited by those in favor of constitutional reform. \u201cAnd now is when they notice all that was wrong?\u201d asks Lora. \u201cHow can we make a Constitution to accommodate one person?\u201d he asks. He expresses his sadness that businessmen would support this movement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Altagracia Salazar on \u201cCuentas, no Cuentas\u201d morning radio show said that in the past municipal election less than half of the people who vote in the presidential election participated. She says that past experiences do not support the separation of municipal, congressional and presidential elections. She said, the question now would be: \u201cAre they preparing a crisis?\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rafael Toribio, also speaking on \u201cCuentas, No Cuentos,\u201d said that the new automated system ensures that results will be available in 15 minutes. \u201cIt looks like technology will work in favor of the management of the elections,\u201d he said. Toribio says Danilo Medina followers are intent on ensuring their leader gets eight more years in government as of 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toribio warned that any politician taking sides with the Danilistas will lose the favor of the middle class, expressed by the Marcha Verde anti-corruption movement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario<\/a>
Diario Libre<\/a>
Diario Libre<\/a>
YouTube<\/a>
YouTube<\/a>
YouTube<\/a> (min 45:20m) \u2013 Cuentas, no Cuentos<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29 August 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk about reforming the 2015 Constitution is being kept alive in the media in the weeks leading up to the 6 October primary. In the first half of the year, social, political and even international pressure impeded President Danilo Medina from pushing through constitutional reform to legally enable his running for a second reelection. The … <\/p>\n

Read more\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[154,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130552"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130574,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130552\/revisions\/130574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}