The Dominican Republic is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with Haiti, making Hispaniola one of only two Caribbean islands, along with Saint Martin, that is shared by two sovereign states. It is the second-largest nation in the Antilles by area at 48,671 square kilometers (18,792 sq mi), and second-largest by population, with approximately 11.4 million people in 2024, of whom approximately 3.6 million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city.
The recorded history of the Dominican Republic began in 1492 when the Genoa-born navigator Christopher Columbus, working for the Crown of Castile, happened upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the Taíno, an Arawakan people, who called the eastern part of the island Quisqueya (Kiskeya), meaning "mother of all lands." Columbus promptly claimed the island for the Spanish Crown, naming it La Isla Española, later Latinized to Hispaniola. After 25 years of Spanish occupation, the Taíno population in the Spanish-dominated parts of the island drastically decreased through genocide. With fewer than 50,000 remaining, the survivors intermixed with Spaniards, Africans, and others, forming the present-day tripartite Dominican population. What would become the Dominican Republic was the Spanish Captaincy General of Santo Domingo until 1821, except for a time as a French colony from 1795 to 1809. It was then part of a unified Hispaniola with Haiti from 1822 until 1844. In 1844, Dominican independence was proclaimed and the republic, which was often known as Santo Domingo until the early 20th century, maintained its independence except for a short Spanish occupation from 1861 to 1865 and occupation by the United States from 1916 to 1924.
Danilo Medina Sánchez is a Dominican politician who was President of the Dominican Republic from 2012 to 2020.
The Senate of the Dominican Republic is the upper house in the bicameral legislature of the Dominican Republic, and together with the Chamber of Deputies makes up the Congress.
Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna is a Dominican lawyer, academic, and was the 50th and 52nd President of the Dominican Republic from 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2012. From 2016 until 2020, he was the President of the EU–LAC Foundation.
The Social Christian Reformist Party is a Christian democratic right-wing political party in the Dominican Republic. It was established on July 24, 1984, by the union of Joaquín Balaguer's Partido Reformista and the Partido Revolucionario Social Cristiano. Some of the PRSC's founders and leaders were originally business leaders and Roman Catholics who opposed the communist, socialist, and social democratic tendencies of Juan Bosch, the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
The Dominican Liberation Party is a political party in the Dominican Republic. Founded in 1973 by former president Juan Bosch, the party, along with the Dominican Revolutionary Party, and Social Christian Reformist Party, has dominated politics in the country since the establishment of democracy in the early 1960s.
The Dominican Revolutionary Party is a political party in the Dominican Republic. Traditionally a left-of-centre party and social democratic in nature, the party has shifted since the 2000s toward the political centre. The party's distinctive color is white. Traditionally, the party has two presidents: the "Titular President" and the "Acting President" ; until 2010 the presidents and the Secretary-General were proscribed to run for any elected office.
The Dominican Republic is a unitary state with elected officials at the national and local levels. On a national level, head of state, the President, is elected directly by the people. The national legislature, the Congress of the Republic, is divided into two chambers: the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. There are also elected offices at the local level. It is estimated that across the whole country, over four thousand offices are filled in every electoral cycle.
The Costa Rican Renewal Party is a Christian political party in Costa Rica.
The Dominican Workers Party was a communist party in the Dominican Republic founded in 1979. The leader and secretary general of the party was José González Espinosa. In the 16 May 2006 election, the party was a member of the winning Progressive Bloc.
The People's Democratic Party is a minor political party in the Dominican Republic. It first contested national elections in 1974, when it provided the main opposition to the ruling Reformist Party due to the Dominican Revolutionary Party not contesting the elections. Its candidate, Luis Homero Lajara Burgos, received 15% of the vote in the presidential election, whilst the party won three seats in the House of Representatives. In 1978 many of the opposition parties returned to the electoral scene. Lajara Burgos received only 0.4% of the vote in the presidential election, whilst the party lost all three seats in the House of Representatives after a similar result in the Congressional elections.
The National Citizen Will Party, formerly known as the National Civic Veterans Party, is a minor Christian-democratic and social-conservative political party in the Dominican Republic. It was founded on 10 May 1973 by Sergeant Federico Marte Pichardo, under the initiative of then-President Joaquin Balaguer, and was renamed on 8 March 2015. It is currently directed by Juan Cohen.
The Independent Revolutionary Party (PRI) is a minor political party of the Dominican Republic, without parliamentary representation after the 16 May 2006 election. The PRI was created by Jacobo Majluta as a way to further his political and electoral ambitions.
Elections to Spain's legislature, the Cortes Generales, were held on 19 November 1933 for all 473 seats in the unicameral Cortes of the Second Spanish Republic. Since the previous elections of 1931, a new constitution had been ratified, and the franchise extended to more than six million women. The governing Republican-Socialist coalition had fallen apart, with the Radical Republican Party beginning to support a newly united political right.
General elections were held in the Dominican Republic on 16 May 1986. Joaquín Balaguer of the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC) won the presidential election, whilst the PRSC-led alliance won the Congressional elections. Voter turnout was 72%.
The Modern Revolutionary Party is a political party in the Dominican Republic. It emerged after a new division within the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). It was recognized on September 9, 2014. The PRM is the legal heir of the Dominican Social Alliance.
General elections were held in the Dominican Republic on 5 July 2020 to elect a president, vice-president, 32 senators and 190 deputies. They had originally been planned for 17 May, but were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. They are the second elections since 1994 in which all positions will be elected simultaneously, and the first in Dominican history in which all authorities will be elected simultaneously and directly.
The Central Electoral Board of the Dominican Republic is a special body of the government of the Dominican Republic responsible for ensuring a democratic and impartial electoral process, and also administer the civil registry, the marital status of all Dominican citizens. It was created in the year 1923 as part of the negotiations to end the first US intervention, and currently its functions are to organize the presidential, congress and of overseas deputies held on the third Sunday of May of each leap year, and municipal elections held on the third Sunday of February of each leap year.
The 1963 Dominican coup d'état was a coup d'état that took place on 25 September 1963 against President Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic. Juan Bosch had been the first democratically elected president after the assassination of the former dictator Rafael Trujillo but he faced criticism due to his policies, which were seen as leftist. This led to the coup that replaced his government with a military junta; which itself would be replaced with a civilian junta.
