Dominican Republic - A New Beginning?
The 1994 agreement and constitutional reforms, reinforced by increased vigilance by elements of Dominican civil society and by international actors, led to successful, free elections in 1996. None of the three main contenders in 1996 received the absolute majority necessary to win in the first round. Peria Gomez of the PRD reached the highest percentage with 45.9 percent, followed by Leonel Fernandez of the PLD with 38.9 percent (Bosch had finally stepped down as party leader because of age and health), and Jacinto Peynado of the PRSC with 15 percent.
Balaguer, who had not endorsed his party's first-round candidate, in the second round joined with the PRSC to officially endorse the candidacy of Leonel Fernandez of the PLD in a "Patriotic Pact." The pact's spokesmen, who called for the preservation of national sovereignty and Dominicanness, were, in effect, articulating racial and anti-Haitian themes in their campaign against Pena Gomez, who was of Haitian ancestry. Aided by the PRSC endorsement, Leonel Fernandez Reyna was able to defeat Pena Gomez in the second round.
Fernandez's arrival to the presidency illustrated many of the dramatic changes that had taken place in the country. At the time of the death of Trujillo in 1961, the Dominican Republic was a predominantly rural country with a population isolated from international contact and an economy largely dependent on the export of sugar and other agricultural crops. By 1996 the country was mostly urban, and its economy and culture were far more linked to the outside world. Sugar was fading in importance; the country's major sources of foreign exchange were now tourism, exports from free trade zones, and remittances from overseas migrants. Indeed, the new president had spent part of his youth as a migrant in New York, where as many as one in fourteen Dominicans lived; he could converse comfortably in English or Spanish about the implications of economic globalization, the threat of drug trafficking routes through the island republic, or the records of the dozens of Dominican baseball players in the major leagues of the United States.
The 1996 elections were the first in the country since 1962 when neither Balaguer nor Bosch was a candidate. Political change was evident, as were elements of continuity and conflict. Fernandez obtained the presidency, but the new electoral calendar established by the 1994 reform meant that congressional elections would now be held at the midpoint of the presidential term. Indeed, his party had a very small representation in Congress because of its poor performance in the 1994 elections. Soon after Fernandez's electoral victory, Balaguer's PRSC negotiated a pact with the PRD to obtain leadership positions in Congress. Without congressional support, however, as of mid-1998 the Fernandez administration was stymied in its efforts to pass legislation.
Midway through his presidential term in office, Fernandez had been governing in a more democratic fashion than Balaguer. As of 1998, the Fernandez administration had had two major political successes. One was the appointment in August 1997 of a new Supreme Court—widely viewed as comprising many distinguished jurists — in a much more open process through a Council of the Magistrature established by the constitutional reform of 1994. The other was the holding of fair congressional and municipal elections on May 16, 1998.
At the same time, the death of Pena Gomez, one of the country's political leaders, on May 10, 1998, was an indicator of the transition in Dominican politics at the close of the twentieth century. Because of Peria Gomez's death one week before the elections, the PRD won by an even wider margin than polls had suggested, gaining 80 percent of Senate seats, 56 percent of seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and 83 percent of mayoral races. Although Fernandez's own PLD improved its congressional representation compared to 1994, it was not nearly to the level expected by the party; the PRSC also did very poorly.
Thus, the Dominican Republic entered the new century seeking to strengthen still fragile democratic institutions, building on the successful democratic transition represented by the 1996 elections. The country is also having to learn how to manage the bitter interparty wrangling reflected in tense executivecongressional relations while also managing leadership changes in the major parties and confronting continuing serious socioeconomic challenges.
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