First Guatemala, and now the Dominican Republic, are seeking to pull a ‘Kirshner’.
Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, the first lady of the Dominican Republic, has been approved by the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) as a possible presidential candidate for the 2012 elections. Her husband Leonel Fernandez recently announced that he would not be seeking a fourth term in office, which opened the office to new leadership in nearly a decade. His fervent supporters were hoping he would change the constitution so he could run again - he didn’t but found the second best thing to that - have his wife run.
Cedeño, Vice President Rafael Alburqueque, former candidate Danilo Medina, former senators Francisco Domínguez and José Tomás Pérez, former Minister of Interior Franklyi Almeyda and political leader Radhamés segura will face off in the Liberation Party’s internal elections in late June 26th, according to the secretary general of the party and Senate President Reinaldo Pared Pérez.
Neither Cedeño nor her husband, has offered a public comment on the issue.
First Ladies running to succeed their husbands, seems to have become a trend, since the Kirshners pulled it off in Argentina. Dominican Republic’s current political climate is eerily similar to the current political scene in Guatemala, where first lady Sandra Torres has filed for divorce from her husband and current president Alvaro Colom, in an attempt to circumvent constitutional laws preventing her to compete in September’s presidential elections.
Despite both Fernández and Colom’s efforts to subtract relevance to the fact that their wives are running, and both men’s promises to remain impartial through the election period, it is hard not to see the Central American nations turn toward “housewifecracy” as a faux reelection, where the reelected is not the president, but the First Lady.
