“Here in Capira, there are not going to be primaries,” said the president of the Cambio Democrático party, Rómulo Roux, during a work tour in this sector, “this is the candidate of Cambio Democrático for 2024,” he said while raising his hand of Eduardo Vásquez as his candidate for deputy of the 13-2 circuit.
After this announcement, the deputy for Cambio Democrático, Yanibel Ábrego, who has been elected in Capira for the last 15 years, spoke through her Twitter account saying: «Rómulo Roux announces his finger candidate for Cambio Democrático in Capira , blinds himself to seeing his defeat in any internal process. If you do not have leadership to compete, do not distract attention. In the inevitable primary we are going to drown you in votes. Let’s go to Election NOW!”
This announcement was made by the president of this political group after last Tuesday, the Plenary of the Electoral Court determined that there were violations of due process in the process that concluded with a resolution that sanctioned 15 deputies of Cambio Democrático with the expulsion, revocation of mandate and declaration of treason against the party, issued by the Court of Honor and Discipline and confirmed by the National Board of Directors of the group.
What does the law say?
Electoral Decree 29 of May 30, 2022, which calls for the General Election of May 5, 2024 and approves its regulations, says in section 5, article 97: «Position reservation limits for alliances. When the statute of a political party provides that its candidates for popularly elected positions will be chosen by primary elections, but with the possibility of excluding or reserving positions to agree alliances; These exclusions or reservations may not exceed 40% of the charges that must go to primaries. This percentage is applied to the applications for deputy, mayor and corregimiento representative.
This means that Roux can elect or reserve 40% of his membership, what he cannot eliminate are the primaries to elect the new party president.