Caribbean & Central America - June 2015 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The Dominican Republic (DR)’s national bicameral congress has voted in favour of amending the 2010 constitution to lift the ban on consecutive presidential re-election. The initiative was promoted by a faction of the ruling Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) which has freely admitted that its objective is to allow President Danilo Medina to seek a second presidential term in the May 2016 general elections [RC-15-05]. But not everyone is convinced that the reform is positive, with large sections of the political opposition and even some members of the PLD itself warning that it may represent a major step back for Dominican democracy.

After the PLD agreed to set aside its internal differences and back the proposed constitutional reform, its passage through the PLD-dominated national congress looked practically assured. Still, there was some speculation that this could be slow and produce frictions. These did emerge but nonetheless the reform bill sailed through the legislature and was unanimously approved by the senate on 28 May. This, despite the fact that ten PLD senators allied with former president, Leonel Fernández (1996-2000; 2004-2008; 2008-2012), had said that they would not back it. Fernández, who still harbours presidential ambitions, had said that pursuing such a reform was unnecessary and could represent a major step back for democracy, undermining the principle of the alternation of power. However, prior to the vote in the senate, the PLD issued a statement saying that Fernández had reached a deal with President Medina whereby he would support the bill for the sake of party unity.

Senator Reinaldo Pared Pérez, the PLD party secretary, said that the pro-Fernández and the pro-Medina party factions had reached an “historic” 15-point agreement in support of the reform. The accord provides a series of concessions to Fernández and his supporters. These include the guarantee that Fernández will remain party president until 2020 and legislators would have the chance to seek their own re-election on the PLD ticket in next year’s elections. In addition, Vice-President Margarita Cedeño, Fernández’s wife, will once again be Medina’s running mate in 2016. With this deal in place and another sealed with the main opposition Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), the reform bill was approved by the chamber of deputies on 2 June.

In order to secure the PRD’s backing, the PLD agreed to introduce a provision limiting re-election to a single consecutive term. However, support for the bill was not unanimous in the lower chamber as some opposition and a few dissident PLD deputies voted against it. This did not prevent the bill from receiving the requisite two-thirds majority in the 190-seat chamber (it received 148 votes in favour with 38 votes against) but it did expose serious political divisions and realignments that the initiative is producing within the PLD and the opposition.

Opponents of the reform made sure that their objections were noted. Deputy Víctor Salazar, one of the few PLD deputies that voted against the bill, immediately quit the ruling party. Meanwhile Deputy Nelson Arroyo of the Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) criticised the fact that the reform did not “come from the will of the people”. This was echoed by PRM presidential candidate, Luis Abinader, who in a televised speech accused the PLD of attempting to “annihilate democracy” with the reform and with the help of the PRD (see sidebar). Nevertheless, Medina wasted no time in sanctioning the bill hours after its approval. The senate president, the PLD’s Cristina Lizardo, then convened a meeting on 6 June of the bicameral congressional constitutional review assembly - in charge of drafting constitutional amendments – to analyse the bill. The review assembly approved the text of the bill in its first debate on 6 June. A second debate has been scheduled for 12 June. Approval of the reform now looks like a mere formality. But the effects that this could have on the DR’s political landscape between now and the elections are much less certain.

• Abinader

Luis Abinader called for a public march to congress on 6 June to protest the constitutional amendment, warning that the PLD was “undermining the credibility and confidence in the nation’s fundamental political institutions by imposing an unnecessary, untimely and anti-democratic reform”. But this failed to prevent the bicameral congressional review assembly from approving the changes. Since then, Abinader has said that the PRM will challenge the reform on constitutional grounds and has alleged that PLD and PRD deputies received bribes (in the form of cash and future government posts) from the Medina government to vote in favour of the reform. Abinader said that in coming weeks the PRM will present evidence of this to the attorney general’s office.