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Party to celebrate Covenant Day, reaffirm membership
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Posted on Mar 07 2012
By Haidee V. Eugenio
Reporter
Reporter
Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos said the Covenant Party will be celebrating Covenant Day on March 24, the 36th year when President Gerald Ford signed a joint congressional resolution approving a mutually negotiated “Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States.”
Covenant Day, as it is known, is an observed CNMI holiday, which this year falls on a Saturday.
“We are celebrating Covenant Day and part of our celebration is to essentially meet with party mates and talk about.the roles that we will play in the upcoming midterm elections. Essentially reorganization, reaffirmation, confirmation of candidates and so forth,” Inos told Saipan Tribune.
Inos, the titular head of the Covenant Party, said they will field candidates for the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
“Party leaders are meeting actively to consider the slate,” he added.
The 11-year-old Covenant Party was founded by Gov. Benigno R. Fitial in 2001. In January 2011, Fitial went back to his old party, the Republican Party, and is now its chairman again.
Many of the Covenant Party members followed Fitial to the Republican Party, but others-including Inos and at least three House members-stayed with the Covenant Party.
Another Covenant Party member said yesterday that the venue for the Covenant Day gathering has yet to be finalized.
President Ford signed on March 24, 1976, the “Covenant” that the U.S. Congress approved.
A year later, the CNMI government adopted its own Constitution, and the constitutional government took office in January 1978.
The “Covenant” was fully implemented on Nov. 3, 1986, pursuant to Presidential Proclamation 5564, which conferred U.S. citizenship on legally qualified CNMI residents.
