When, in November 2014, the current led by Hipólito Mejía and current President Luis Abinader decided to leave the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) because of their disagreements with Miguel Vargas Maldonado and the way he carried the political entity’s guidelines. And they founded the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), they needed a statutory basis to transform the Dominican Social Alliance.
For this reason, the birth of the PRM adopted virtually the same guidelines that the PRD had in its internal statutes at the time of separation, including what is set out in the current Article 101 which states that “until the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) appoints a Congress for debating the issue of presidential re-election will be banned. “
Now, with a reform of all the articles in the statutes of the next party to be carried out, the content of that article can be changed to favor those airings.
From PRD Peña Gómez
The principle of not allowing consecutive presidential re-election is in the PRD statutes from the mid-1970s, promoted by its late leader José Francisco Peña Gómez, who said it was a “curse left by Trujillo” and at the base line, they focused his actions on both the opposition and the ruling party.
They remained so despite winning the first election with Antonio Guzmán Fernández in 1978, when they decided to take Salvador Jorge Blanco (who won the 1982 election) despite the fact that the then Constitution did not prevent Guzmán’s reputation in function.
The PRD represented by Peña Gómez signed in 1994 with the then president Joaquín Balaguer the so-called “Pact for Democracy” which, among other things, already known, managed to reform the Magna Carta and thus the elimination of the figure was imposed. of the “consecutive presidential repostulation” of the same thing, this being indicated as one of the “greatest achievements” of the PRD leader.
Hipólito brings re-election back
Despite this achievement by Peña Gómez, during the second and until the last government led by the PRD, the figure of re-election is restored.
In 2002, just four years after Peña’s death and eight years after the constitutional reform that abolished her, the incumbent president and then the PRD leader, Hipólito Mejía, managed to amend the Constitution and replace the re-registration figure for a second consecutive one. period, but this time with the addition that anyone who did so could not run again for the presidency of the Republic. This change generated divisions in the PRD that culminated in the departure of Peña Gómez’s leader and friend Hatuey de Camps, who founded the Social Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRSD).
Mejía is currently a member of the executive leadership of PRM, which is the highest body of that party entity.
On one side and on the other
Despite the fact that Mejía is the one carrying out the constitutional reform, Leonel Fernández, then of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), was the one who took advantage of it and in his second consecutive period promoted a complete change of the constitutional text in which , among other things, the consecutive repost is almost never eliminated. This latest move comes after the signing of the “Blue Ties Pact” with Miguel Vargas and the PRD.
On that occasion, Vargas Maldonado made statements stating that “the exclusion of the presidential re-election from the Constitution and the determination to prevail over the institutionalization in that organization are part of the commitment to claim the democratic coherence of José Francisco Peña Gómez. . “Showing justification for what Mejía did eight years earlier.
However, when in 2014 he began to establish positions “in favor” of the re-election of Danilo Medina (which he later achieved), this was one of the causes that led to the group’s departures led by Abinader and Mejía.
PRM reform will not be “temporary”
With only eight months at the helm of the Executive, the reappointment of Abinader is underlined by various sectors as a possibility, however, to achieve this, the status of the PRM should be changed.
On the subject of a reform, the chairman of the Statutory Reform Commission of the Modern Revolutionary Party, Eddy Olivares, informed LISTÍN DIAIRO that on May 1 he would present to the executive leadership a proposal to recast the 137 articles of its internal statutes, including the subject of the refusal. presidential.
“We are making changes to all the articles, ie the 137 articles have been amended either in substance or in writing … in case 101, these changes will be known by the extraordinary national convention, so yes, that article is under discussion at the moment and it will be the members of the convention, where the party will be fully represented, who will decide whether or not to approve these changes, ”Olivares said.
The political leader stressed that the content of Article 101 is not the main reason for the reform and that most of the changes that will be presented were already ready to be approved in July 2019, but because they were in the pre-campaign, they decided to leave it after the election.
“Abinader gets upset when I talk to him about re-election”
At a meeting last Sunday, PRM leader Franklin García said a reform of the political entity’s status was proposed to allow for a new presidential term, but the very next day the party’s president and the presidency’s administrative minister, José Ignacio Paliza, said that Abinader is not thinking about re-election.
“The president is focusing on governing, getting this country out of the crisis and creating jobs; there is no other project or idea that will move us in this direction,” Paliza told reporters covering the National Palace, adding. that he saw an “annoying Abinader” when someone approached him on the subject.
Today, the President of the Republic, while in opposition, has always established positions contrary to consecutive presidential re-election, but since it is allowed by the current Constitution, the possibility is not completely closed.
And during the week just ended, he urged his party not to touch on this issue for the next two years and to focus on the government tasks entrusted to it by Dominican society.