Vinicio A. Castillo Semán
The Central Electoral Council (JCE) has issued regulations to determine the method of allocating public funds to political parties and classifying them as majority parties in accordance with the provisions of Article 61 of the Elections Act.
What does the law say? That the parties that obtained more than 5% of the valid votes in the last elections are allocated 80% of the state resources.
Article 61 has no method for averaging elections at different levels. It has a lagoon by default. The JCE cannot legislate and provide something that is not required by law. And that is what the JCE has done by harming the People’s Force and 23 other parties by declaring that only the PRM and the PLD are majority parties.
I do not dispute the regulatory power of the JCE. In accordance with Article 23 of Law 200, it had to submit its draft resolution for public consultation. Unfortunately not. But what to do in cases where a party gets more than 5% on one level and less on another level? That is the key question.
The People’s Force got 5.69% at the presidential level. And less than 5% at the conference level.
It was up to the JCE, in the absence of a legal mandate, to issue an ordinance with the criterion of favoritism having constitutional rank. That criterion with the north to strengthen the DR party system. Don’t weaken it, creating in the popular imagination that in the DR there are only 2 majority parties exceeding 5%, which is incorrect.
The JCE’s misstep is seen as a clear act of persecution against Leonel Fernández and his party, Fuerza del Pueblo, as well as a clear anti-party line. Very dangerous to the credibility of a JCE that has just started.
The JCE must reconsider its undemocratic resolution. Remove the doubts that have been raised in the public that political parties are behind this resolution.
The method of means is not in the law and no one can dispute that reality. If the decision is to be interpreted administratively, it must be the one that most strengthens democracy in the Dominican Republic, not the one that weakens it the most.