SANTO DOMINGO.-An administrative solution is the parties’ commitment to ruling 788-24 of the Constitutional Court, which creates conditions so that independent candidacies can be presented.
This implies that, instead of turning to Congress for the purposes of adapting the Law to the aforementioned ruling and conditioning the presentation of proposals in which they could perhaps waste months in deliberations, they will take advantage of the prerogatives that the Law confers on the Central Electoral Board to decide on these issues.
Meeting with JCE
Yesterday, representatives of the Modern Revolutionary Parties (PRM), Fuerza del Pueblo (FP) and Dominican Liberation (PLD) met with the plenary session of the JCE to address several aspects, including the regulation of independent candidacies.
“There is no document, it was a conversation we had inviting them to sponsor a consultation and a consensus with the parties to reform those articles that the ruling is annulling,” reported Danilo Díaz, PLD delegate to the JCE.
This Tuesday, the coordinator of Citizen Participation, Erick Hernández, reported that the internal bodies of the entity will meet immediately to establish a definitive position.
JCE work
“However, it is important to highlight that the same ruling indicates that regardless of its ruling, the legislator retains the power, if he wishes, to regulate independent candidacies,” Hernández said.
Hernández, who is also a constitutionalist, indicated that the court operated within its powers, explaining that the sentences can be hortatory, addictive, which is when value is added, or reductive, which is when parts of the Law are eliminated.
Violated competencies
“What is worrying for the system, not only in relation to political parties, is that the Constitutional Court has gone in to address one of the issues provided for organic laws.
It is in that direction that the dissenting votes of the sentence go, since the court did not have powers to regulate the organic matter.”
Like the parties, Hernández understands that it is the JCE that must examine how it will regulate the sentence and that the same court recognizes that the entity has the power to do so.
“All these demands of the political parties must be addressed through regulatory means or by resolutions of the JCE, seeking not only equality between the parties, but also having control of those independent candidacies that, although it is true that they have their value, “They should not alter the electoral scenario.”
Sentence context
The issue began in the process of registering candidates in the last electoral process, with a direct action of unconstitutionality filed before the TC by Alberto Fiallo, a candidate for senator whose registration as an independent candidate was rejected by the JCE.
The articles of the Electoral Law under discussion were 156 and 157, which, although they partially dealt with independent candidacies, did not present a clear framework on which the electoral body could act.
This is how the court decides not to limit itself to knowing the constitutionality of the Law but goes even further into its powers and decides to go from a sentence that exhorts, to a sentence that legislates.
However, the same ruling establishes participation limits for independent candidates. Applicants must present a government program and obtain the support of 2% of the last voter registry of the district for which they aspire in signatures.
But all this also raises other aspects of conflict, such as the candidacies for deputies, whose results are decided after applying the DHondt method.
Representatives
— Matches
The delegates of the PRM, PLD and FP who met yesterday with the president of the JCE were Sigmund Freund, Danilo Díaz, José Dantés, Dionisio de los Santos, Nathanael Concepción and Javier Ubiera.
They do not oppose the ruling of the TC
Reaction. Upon leaving the meeting held by representatives of the majority parties with the president of the JCE, they declared that they do not oppose the sentence and that what they seek is for its implementation to be regulated.
“The JCE is interested in the issue and wants to reach a consensus and adapt that sentence to the reality of the elections,” they said.
They assured that at the time the electoral body will convene the rest of the political organizations to discuss the aspects to be regulated.
The fear of fatigue that traditional parties usually cause and the gaps that outsiders of politics find to penetrate the citizens persists on stage.
