Former Gov. Froilan Tenorio is challenging Democratic partymate Sen. Luis Crisostimo to resign from his post now if he believes he can beat him in a gubernatorial primary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI challenge him to step down now. The CNMI Constitution provides that he should resign his Senate seat once he is certified. But why wait after primary? If he thinks he can beat me, he should resign now. Do it before the primary,\u201d said Tenorio in an interview.<\/p>\n
Tenorio, who made known his intention to run again for governor, said he has no choice but to agree to a primary because party by-laws calls for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re supposed to have a primary if there is more than one candidate. I will honor that. I don\u2019t have any choice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tenorio currently serves as the Democratic Party\u2019s central committee chair. <\/p>\n
This as Crisostimo recently disclosed that he would be seeking the party\u2019s endorsement for next year\u2019s gubernatorial elections. He said he would challenge Tenorio in a party primary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he [Tenorio] beats me, then fine, he can go ahead but if I beat him in the primary, I\u2019m the one running for governor and he\u2019d be my lieutenant governor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Crisostimo, 43, a first-term senator, thinks that he is the right party candidate being its highest elected member.<\/p>\n
He said he also feels that the Democratic Party \u201cneeds a great leader, a leader with a new vision, who can steer the government in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c[It\u2019s] not somebody who has been a governor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tenorio had served as governor from 1994 to 1998. He had later attempted to get elected for the same post but failed.<\/p>\n
In 2001, he formed his own Reform Party and ran for the 2001 gubernatorial race. He lost to the Babauta team. <\/p>\n
Recently, he decided to go back to the Democratic Party, with his eyes on next year\u2019s polls.<\/p>\n
For his part, Crisostimo\u2014after several attempts\u2014finally won a Senate seat in the 2003 midterm election. Crisostimo was reported to have had the highest campaign spending of $67,311 for his senatorial bid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Gov. Froilan Tenorio is challenging Democratic partymate Sen. Luis Crisostimo to resign from his post now if he believes he can beat him in a gubernatorial primary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}