The president wants constitutional reform. I say let’s go for it provided that we move away from a presidential system and establish a parliamentary democracy.

I for one am tired of seeing consolidation of so much power in the hands of the one person who becomes president. For one thing, the Dominican mindset which seems to think that a president is all knowing and therefore should me made all powerful, could shift into recognizing that to move a country forward requires consensus building and cooperation among the different interests that form the power structures.

For example the metro hole in the ground and financial hole for the country that it will create, could not have been initiated if we had a parliamentary democracy. There was, with just cause, too much opposition to it. The government would have fallen had they started this project as they did without consensus, without budget and without resources.

The details of our parliamentary democracy would be ironed out by a constituent assembly who would adapt these details to our particular needs as a developing nation.

If we have not yet learned from our past, it is likely that we will continue to repeat the same mistakes. What is certain is that there are no supermen/superwomen who will lead us to the promised-land in the “next election”. Haven’t you noticed that we seem to keep saying, “They screwed us this time, but we’ll fix them in the next election”.

An in-depth look at most of our failures as a nation will show that they can be attributed to our system of government. No system of government is perfect. A parliamentary democracy has its problems also but it is far more suitable for our condition than a presidential one that has clearly failed us.