Joaquín Balaguer

Joaquín Balaguer (1906?-2002), Dominican president (1960-1962, 1966-1978, and 1986-1996), born in Santiago and educated in Santo Domingo and Paris. A poet and professor, he served in diplomatic and cabinet posts during the 1940s and 1950s and in 1960 became puppet president of the Dominican Republic, which had been dominated by the dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Forced from office seven months after Trujillo's assassination in 1961, Balaguer went into exile but returned following the attempted revolution and subsequent United States intervention of 1965. Projecting a “peace candidate” image, he won the presidential elections in 1966 with conservative backing and was reelected in 1970 and 1974. He ran unsuccessfully in 1978 and 1982, but he was the victor in 1986 and again in 1990.

In the 1994 presidential elections, Balaguer was officially declared the winner by a margin of more than 20,000 votes, but his opponent, José Francisco Peña Gómez, claimed that 200,000 of his supporters' votes were not counted. International election observers essentially agreed with the charges, but Balaguer remained in power. Complaints of electoral fraud were so prevalent, however, that Balaguer was forced to agree to constitutional reforms that promised a new election in two years and barred him from running for reelection.

In 1996 Leonel Fernández Reyna was elected president and Balaguer stepped down from office. He ran once more, in 2000, but finished third.