Economy Minister to leave post for presidential bid ‘next year’

Santo Domingo.- Ruling PLD party presidential candidacy hopeful and Economy minister Temístocles Montás on Wednesday said he’ll resign his post, but after the campaign to select the candidate for the 2016 election is officially announced.

"Once the party primaries open I’ll I have to leave the post, that’ll surely be between February and March the year that coming, I imagine. I’ll have to leave here to devote myself entirely to my political project, to campaign for the candidacy," the official said, quoted by elcaribe.com.do.

As of August 16 this Montas will markt10 consecutive years as Economy Minister, appointed by now former president Leonel Fernández in 2004, and confirmed in that post by president Danilo Medina.

The official was the first PLD leader to announce a presidential bid and has railed against his former boss as believing he’s a “messianic political leader.”

Senate president and PLD general secretary Reinaldo Pared recently announced his bid, joining Tourism minister Francisco Javier García and the former CEO of the State-owned Electric Utility, Radhames Segura.