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P 161841Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
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UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 003521 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, INR/IAA; USSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD; 
TREASURY FOR OASIA-JLEVINE; DEPT PASS USDA FOR FAS; USDOC 
FOR 4322/ITA/MAC/WH/CARIBBEAN BASIN DIVISION; USDOC FOR 
3134/ITA/USFCS/RD/WH; DHS FOR CIS-CARLOS ITURREGUI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: DR EAID ECON PGOV PHUM SMIG
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN POLITICS III #10: FERNANDEZ"S BIG 
PICTURE - CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM 
 
¶1. (U) This is the tenth cable in our series on Dominican 
politics in the third years of the administration of 
President Leonel Fernandez. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Summary:  President Fernandez has initiated a 
program to reform the constitution of the Dominican Republic, 
seizing the opportunity presented by a two-thirds majority in 
the Senate and simple majority in the House of 
epresentatives.  Fernandez argues that the current 
constitution does not adequately address the issues of civil 
rights, electoral supervision, presidential prerogatives, and 
judicial review. He asserts that in the worst of cases, it 
would not bar the return of dictatorship. The government will 
probably elaborate a more defensible constitutional denial of 
citizenship to children born to foreigners in the Dominican 
Republic, a change that will especially affect  offspring of 
Haitian migrants.  The opposition quibbles at the process but 
is otherwise generally indifferent. Fernandez is far more 
comfortable with this "big picture" important, abstract and 
intellectual project than with the exhausting, conflictive 
business of making government work.  The campaign for the May 
2008 presidential election may mean that this reform project 
fades away, as did a similar blue-ribbon undertaking in 2001. 
 End summary. 
 
A Modern State 
-------------- 
 
¶3. (U) On October 9 Dominican President Leonel Fernandez 
opened his project to reform the Dominican constitution with 
an lengthy and erudite speech at the Autonomous University of 
Santo Domingo.  The President postulated that this time 
constitutional reform is not a new initiative of the ruling 
Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). Rather, "We are putting 
forward an idea that has been pending for a long time on the 
agenda of national reform." 
 
¶4. (U) Fernandez characterized his final goal as "a modern 
state that is agile, flexible, and transparent and that 
responds to the needs and requirements of a world in 
transition....  A world of global integration, a world that 
has new challenges, new demands, and new necessities."  In 
the following weeks, an Executive Commission for the 
Constitutional Reform Process published a booklet with 77 
constitutional questions and invited public comment on them 
at a series of public forums around the country and via a 
website (www.consultapopular.gov.do). 
 
Trujillo Looms 
-------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) The memory of dictatorship is strong in the 
Dominican Republic.  The quasi-totalitarian rule of General 
Rafael Trujillo lasted from 1930 to 1961 and was followed by 
the often authoritarian presidencies of Joachin Balaguer, who 
controlled the Dominican state for 22 of 30 years from 1966 
to 1996.  Fernandez himself can be considered a transitional 
figure, having been elected following Balaguer's final term, 
a truncated two-year period that was the result of a 
negotiated settlement to the widespread electoral fraud of 
the 1994 election. 
 
¶6. (U) In this context today Fernandez argues for the 
strengthening of civil rights.  The President voiced 
particular preoccupation with the lack of a constitutional 
definition of the right to the presumption of innocence, and 
he argued for the strengthening of the and right to habeas 
corpus and the office of the Ombudsman.  As an example, 
Fernandez criticized the security services' "common practice" 
 
of taking citizens in for questioning after they make public 
statements critical of the government agencies.  With these 
changes, the President says, his goal is to "arm Dominican 
society for the future... (and) protect this country against 
any dictatorship that could come." 
 
¶7. (U) With six years in presidential office, Fernandez also 
seeks to devolve some powers he considers a burden on the 
presidential schedule, such as the approval of tax 
exonerations.  Fernandez spoke of the institutional obstacles 
to delegation and commented that the "last straw" came when 
advisors informed him that only the President could authorize 
a minor project to fix the elevators in the Palace. 
 
Nationality 
----------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Nationality is an important issue in this country, 
from where many Dominicans have emigrated to the United 
States and elsewhere, and where there is a steady influx of 
illegal immigrants from Haiti.  The Dominican constitution 
grants citizenship to individuals born in the country (the 
"jus solis" principle); however, there is an exception for 
persons whose parents are "in transit," which the Government 
-- with the Supreme Court's blessing -- uses to deny 
citizenship to children born to foreigners who are 
undocumented or have only temporary work or travel 
authorization. 
 
¶9. (SBU) While Fernandez was not explicit regarding his goals 
for changing the constitutional article on nationality, he 
appeared to question jus solis, arguing that it "has always 
been a concept used in countries that had wanted to attract 
migration....  Each state defines (nationality) as it 
understands it and no one can see this as racism or 
xenophobia."  Appearing to favor the "jus sanguinis" 
principle (acquisition of nationality based on origin of 
parents, regardless of location) -- which benefits Dominicans 
born abroad -- Fernandez argued for the strengthening of 
dual-nationality and the transmission of Dominican 
nationality to second and third generations abroad. 
 
¶10. (U) Fernandez supports efforts to increase the 
participation of the Dominican expatriate community in local 
politics and development. In July he suggested that his 
constitutional reform agenda would include the allocation of 
congressional representation to Dominicans living overseas. 
Studies have estimated that in 2000 more than a million 
Dominicans (equivalent to more than 10 percent of the 
country's current population) resided in the United States 
alone. 
 
Constructing a New Democracy 
---------------------------- 
 
¶11. (U) In his speech, the President also recommended changes 
to the constitutional articles on electoral supervision and 
judicial review, and argued strongly -- and at some length -- 
that a preamble should be added to the charter that 
"establishes the Dominican Republic as a social democratic 
state based on law."  Fernandez wrapped up his address with a 
plea for support, saying that, "We all know that, because of 
our history, there is much skepticism and lack of confidence 
(in the Government) and we understand that and admit it.  All 
that we ask is that you give us the opportunity to 
demonstrate that we are constructing the edifice of a new 
democracy in the Dominican Republic, and that all of us will 
do it together....  That is democracy ) pluralism and the 
diversity of ideas." 
 
 
Reactions 
--------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) Since amendments to the constitution require a 
two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress, Fernandez will 
need the opposition's support in the House of 
Representatives, where his PLD party holds only 54 percent of 
the seats.  The Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), the 
country's second largest party, declined to attend the 
President's speech, but otherwise seems not to have focused 
on this issue, at least not yet.  The PRD did argue that any 
reform to the charter should not be carried out by the 
current Congress (where they lost a long-held majority in the 
May 2006 election) but rather by a Constituent Assembly. 
This view is shared by the prominent civil society 
organization Participacion Ciudadana.  It should be noted 
that a constituent assembly is not currently a constitutional 
option; indeed, Participacion Ciudadana argues that the 
reforms that Fernandez proposes are not so urgent that they 
should not precede a reform to allow for a constituent 
assembly (which would presumably allow for the direct 
participation of citizen groups). Fernandez's reply to his 
critics is that the Congress was elected only six months ago 
and therefore represents the will of the people; in any 
event, the President contends, a Constituent Assembly would 
also be an elected body subject to the political process. 
 
¶13. (U)Noted commentator Juan Bolivar Diaz questioned the 
value of the constitutional reform exercise, arguing that 
longstanding national traditions are the source of threats to 
democracy.  Diaz wrote "The roots of authoritarianism are not 
based in Article 55 of the Constitution (regarding 
presidential powers), but rather in the tradition that 
confers upon the President the ability to disregard the magna 
carta and national laws and simply to stipulate at his 
convenience or whim."  Regarding the PRD, Diaz termed the 
party "hypocritical" for demanding the formation of a 
constituent assembly, recalling that in 2002 PRD President 
Hipolito Mejia and a PRD-majority Congress pushed through an 
amendment to allow Mejia to run for a second term. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) We take President Fernandez at his word when he 
says that it is important to the Dominican Republic to reform 
its constitution. Coming from a former law professor and 
founder of an important think tank, his arguments are strong. 
 Constitutional reform is an intellectual pursuit, and 
therefore attractive to this president.  The "vision thing" 
is his thing, and in this case  it is more easily 
accomplished than the knottily complex national issues that 
require close attention, management, and personal 
confrontation.  Examples are exposing and combating 
corruption, making many reluctant parties undertake the 
actions needed for implementation of the free trade 
agreement, facing down the statists in the electricity 
sector, ending subsidies, and reordering spending. 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Regarding the hot-button issue of nationality for 
those born in the country, Fernandez is unwilling to 
challenge the xenophobic view that residents of Haitian 
origin and their offspring will never be eligible for 
consideration as Dominicans.  An evident example is the 
project of the Migration Council, elaborated in mid-2005 but 
left to wither: under hard-liner Interior Minister Franklin 
Almeyda, the council proposed draft regulations mandating a 
census that would identify illegals having lived in the 
 
country for more than ten years, with a view to authorizing 
residence papers for them.  Dominicans are comfortable with 
doublethink on nationality, even though many, through parents 
legally or illegally in the United States, obtained dual 
citizenship by birth in U.S. territory. 
 
¶16. (SBU) The May 2008 presidential campaigning could put a 
stop to the Fernandez constitutional project.  A similar blue 
ribbon consultative undertaking chaired in 2001 by mediator 
Msgr Agripino Nunez fizzled out.  The President's "big 
picture" approach of formal consultation of the public 
nationwide before drafting amendments has begun; it promises 
to be time-consuming and inefficient. He will have to obtain 
a two-thirds majority in Congress.  If he is able to achieve 
the goal of fortifying this young democracy, he will be 
applauded by all; if he can't manage the government better 
than he has to date, constitutional reform may not make much 
difference. 
 
¶16. (U) Drafted by Peter Hemsch, Michael Meigs. 
 
¶17. (U) This report and extensive other material can be 
consulted on our SIPRNET site, 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  
HERTELL