Dominican Republic

In May 1965 the OAS arranged a cease-fire in the Dominican civil war and established an inter-American peacekeeping force. U.S. Marines were withdrawn. Negotiations were held to establish a Dominican government that would be acceptable to both the loyalists and the rebels (who called themselves “constitutionalists” to indicate their desire to restore the constitutionally elected government of Bosch). Hector García-Godoy, former foreign minister under Bosch, assumed the presidency in September.

A presidential election was held in 1966, which former president Balaguer, a conservative, won. His administration, although not entirely democratic, restored relative stability to the country. The economy showed strength, aided by high sugar prices, foreign investment, and increased tourism, enabling Balaguer to win reelection easily in 1970 and 1974. The Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), led by Bosch, boycotted both elections, charging restrictions on its campaign activities.

In the mid-1970s a sharp decline in world sugar prices adversely affected the Dominican economy, and Balaguer’s support began to dwindle. In the 1978 elections he was turned out of office, defeated by the PRD candidate, Silvestre Antonio Guzmán. After foiling a plot by right-wing military men to prevent him from taking office, Guzmán purged the armed forces of many Balaguer supporters, released some 200 political prisoners of the previous regime, and eased press censorship. The economy remained troubled by low sugar prices and high oil prices and was further damaged by two severe hurricanes in 1979.

The PRD chose not to nominate Guzmán in 1982. He died in July of that year, an apparent suicide, shortly after Senator Salvador Jorge Blanco, the PRD candidate, was elected to succeed him. To rescue the country from its deepening economic crisis, Jorge Blanco turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which demanded that the Dominican government institute austerity measures in exchange for a three-year IMF loan package. These measures, including price increases for basic foods and gasoline, led to protest riots throughout the nation in 1984 and 1985. PRD promises to redistribute land and end corruption went unfulfilled, and the party proved unable to halt killings and illegal detentions by the police. Balaguer was returned as president in 1986 by a slim margin. Deficits and foreign debt mounted; water and power service faltered. In 1988, Jorge Blanco was tried in absentia and found guilty of corruption during his presidential years.

In the 1990 presidential election, Balaguer barely defeated Bosch. He was reelected in 1994 but agreed to serve only a two-year term after he was accused of electoral fraud. In a presidential runoff election held in June 1996 Leonel Fernández Reyna of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) defeated José Francisco Peña Gómez of the PRD to win the presidency. The PRD was not in opposition for long, however. In 2000 the party returned to power with the election of Hipólito Mejía to the presidency. Although Fernández was credited with helping make the Dominican Republic a popular tourist destination in the late 1990s, his tenure was tainted by corruption scandals.

Mejía served only one term. In the 2004 presidential election he was defeated by Fernández, who ran again as the candidate of the PLD. Mejía’s term was marked by the collapse of Banco Intercontinental, the country’s second-largest bank. His decision to bail out the bank’s depositors, many of whom were wealthy supporters of the PRD, reportedly caused the devaluation of the Dominican currency and led to an additional $2 billion in foreign debt. The resulting economic crisis, one of the worst in decades, saw a rise in food prices, an unemployment rate of 17 percent, and frequent electricity shortages. To resolve the crisis and to qualify for badly needed loans from the International Monetary Fund, Fernández was expected to cut government payrolls and impose other austerity measures.