NewsWhore
11-20-2006, 04:00 PM
President Leonel Fernandez is pushing for joint elections in 2012. According to the President, holding elections every two years is "tiring". El Caribe says that the Chief Executive is proposing the 2012 scenario whereby Presidential, municipal and Congressional elections would be held the same year, although not on the same date. In fact, the President was careful to add that what he was saying was just a proposal. The Presidential election would be held on 16 May, as usual, and the Congressional and municipal elections would be held on 16 July. The President made his remarks as the final speaker at a seminar on Municipal government and Constitutional Reform that included all the country's mayors. According to the proposal, the 2010 Congressional and municipal elections would elect candidates for a two-year term, with the possible caveat that the same candidates could run in 2012. Perhaps the most positive aspect of the Presidential proposal was the fact that the elections would be separate, thus eliminating the "coattail" effect of so many past elections.
While some of the nation's newspapers were polling "the man in the street", Diario Libre asked two prominent political scientists, Cesar Perez and Pedro Catrain for their opinions. They shared the opinion that the proposal would be a retrograde step that would annul one of the Dominican people's most important achievements. Catrain said that mid-term elections serve as a barometer for measuring the success or failure of a government's policies. Both experts said that the mid-term elections strengthen local leadership and avoid any "riding of the coattails" by less gifted politicians. These elections also promote decentralization of state powers. According to Catrain, President Fernandez made his proposals because he is an immensely popular figure who would surely pull in the voters to choose his party's candidates for municipal and Congressional office.
Diario Libre's page two columnist Homero Figueroa makes an interesting point while discussing this issue. He points out that the President has brought up the unification of the Congressional and Presidential elections at a time when the focus, otherwise, is on the government's proposed tax increases. "This is the old political tactic of a new debate served to chill a heated debate that is ongoing in the press," he concludes. "For Fernandez, it is easier to present arguments in favor of the unifying of the elections than on the need for new taxes," he writes.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#1)
While some of the nation's newspapers were polling "the man in the street", Diario Libre asked two prominent political scientists, Cesar Perez and Pedro Catrain for their opinions. They shared the opinion that the proposal would be a retrograde step that would annul one of the Dominican people's most important achievements. Catrain said that mid-term elections serve as a barometer for measuring the success or failure of a government's policies. Both experts said that the mid-term elections strengthen local leadership and avoid any "riding of the coattails" by less gifted politicians. These elections also promote decentralization of state powers. According to Catrain, President Fernandez made his proposals because he is an immensely popular figure who would surely pull in the voters to choose his party's candidates for municipal and Congressional office.
Diario Libre's page two columnist Homero Figueroa makes an interesting point while discussing this issue. He points out that the President has brought up the unification of the Congressional and Presidential elections at a time when the focus, otherwise, is on the government's proposed tax increases. "This is the old political tactic of a new debate served to chill a heated debate that is ongoing in the press," he concludes. "For Fernandez, it is easier to present arguments in favor of the unifying of the elections than on the need for new taxes," he writes.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#1)