Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
Economic decline and divisions within the PRD paved the
way for the unexpected presidential comeback ofJoaquin Balaguer
in 1986. A loyal electorate, especially older, less educated,
rural, and female voters, and splits within and between
the opposition parties permitted Balaguer to win the 1986 elections.
Aided, it was charged, by electoral fraud, Balaguer was
able to eke out narrow victories in 1990 and 1994 as well.
The 1990 elections were marred by irregularities and
charges of fraud, as the eighty-three-year-old incumbent Balaguer
edged out his eighty-year-old opponent, Juan Bosch, by
a mere 24,470 votes. With the PRD still recovering from its factional
strife, Jose Francisco Peha Gomez came in a surprisingly
strong third place. The 1994 elections were even more crisisridden
than those of 1990 because of an extremely tense and
bitter campaign between Balaguer and Peria Gomez. When
thousands of voters were prevented from voting because their
names did not appear on electoral rolls, domestic protest and
international pressure led to a drawn-out crisis. Between 1994
and 1996, the political efforts of opposition parties, Dominican
civil society (including substantial elements of the business
community), and the international community (the United
States in particular) focused on how to secure the holding of
fair elections in 1996 and how to block any effort by Balaguer
to extend his term in office, either unconstitutionally or by
modifying the constitution. The crisis was finally resolved when
Balaguer agreed to reduce his term to two years and accept a
number of constitutional reforms, including a prohibition on
immediate presidential reelection. As a consequence, the
eighty-eight-year-old Balaguer finally left the presidency in
1996, handing power over to the PLD's Leonel Fernandez
Reyna, whom Balaguer had tacitly supported and then openly
endorsed (age and illness had led to Bosch's retirement in
1994).
The 1996 elections proceeded according to strict guidelines.
In 1996, unlike the previous two elections, presidential reelection
was not an issue, and the Central Electoral Board was
staffed by professional nonpartisans. Furthermore, in addition
to the oversight provided by several high-profile missions of
international observers, civil society mobilized far more extensively
in support of free and fair elections than it had done in
the past.
The 1996 elections were held under new rules requiring a
second-round election if no candidate received more than 50
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