{"id":145251,"date":"2020-08-12T08:06:52","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T12:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/wordpress\/?p=145251"},"modified":"2020-08-12T13:39:51","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T17:39:51","slug":"president-medina-cops-out-of-inaugural","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/2020\/08\/12\/president-medina-cops-out-of-inaugural\/","title":{"rendered":"President Medina cops out of inaugural"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Administrative Minister of the Presidency Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00f3n Peralta confirmed that President Danilo Medina will not personally hand over the presidential sash to President-elect Luis Abinader. Instead, Medina will attend a private act at the National Assembly room where he will hand over the presidential sash to Santiago senator Eduardo Estrella. And then he will leave the National Assembly before the change of command ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in the morning, the elected senators will vote for Estrella to preside over the Senate. Estrella ran for the Dominicans for Change (DxC) minority party, but backed the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) and its presidential candidate Luis Abinader. As planned, Estrella will then return to the main hall of the National Assembly to place the sash on President-elect Luis Abinader on the morning of 16 August 2020. For the first time in 42 years, the outgoing President will not be present to in person hear the inaugural speech by the new President after his being sworn in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Medina Presidency explains President Danilo Medina’s absence alleging the risk of Covid-19 obliges the inaugural organizers to restrict the number of attendants. Nevertheless, the Covid-19 infection risk has not impeded Medina from attending crowded inaugurations of public works in recent days. On Tuesday, President Medina was in Valverde and Montecristi in the northwest, two provinces with a major spike in coronavirus cases. On Tuesday alone, President Medina was in five locations nationwide for the crowded inaugurations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time in almost half a century of Dominican political history, that an outgoing President will prematurely leave the inaugural ceremony. There have been government changes in 1978, when the late Joaqu\u00edn Balaguer passed government to the late Antonio Guzm\u00e1n. Balaguer was present for the speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in 1982, the late Jacobo Majluta delivered the Presidency to the late Salvador Jorge Blanco. In 1986, Jorge Blanco turned the government back to Joaqu\u00edn Balaguer. In 1996, Balaguer was present for the change of government to Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez, and Fern\u00e1ndez also sat for the inaugural speech of Hip\u00f3lito Mej\u00eda in 2000. In 2004, Mej\u00eda delivered power to Fern\u00e1ndez, and in 2012, Fern\u00e1ndez turned over to Danilo Medina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Administrative Minister of the Presidency Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00f3n Peralta explained the private act was approved by both the PLD and the PRM transition commissions to comply with the health protocols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senator-elect Faride Raful of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) said the decision was just notified to Congress by the Presidency. Speaking on Esta Noche con Mariasela TV show on 11 August, Raful called the change in the normal protocol for the change of government a lack of respect to the legislators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsewise, the media is full of speculations on why Medina would not participate in the Abinader inaugural ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario<\/a>
Listin Diario<\/a>
El Caribe<\/a>
Diario Libre <\/a>
El Caribe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listin Diario<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hoy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

11 August 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Administrative Minister of the Presidency Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00f3n Peralta confirmed that President Danilo Medina will not personally hand over the presidential sash to President-elect Luis Abinader. Instead, Medina will attend a private act at the National Assembly room where he will hand over the presidential sash to Santiago senator Eduardo Estrella. And then he will leave … <\/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":[271,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145251"}],"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=145251"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145321,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145251\/revisions\/145321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}