Dominican Republic general election, 1986

Last updated March 25, 2019

General elections were held in the Dominican Republic on 16 May 1986.^[1] Joaquín Balaguer of the Social Christian Reformist Party won the presidential election, whilst the PRSC-led alliance won the Congressional elections. Voter turnout was 72.2%.^[2]

The Dominican Republic is a country located in the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands, along with Saint Martin, that are shared by two sovereign states. The Dominican Republic is the second-largest Caribbean nation by area at 48,671 square kilometers (18,792 sq mi), and third by population with approximately 10 million people, of which approximately three million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city.

Joaquín Balaguer President of the Dominican Republic

Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo was the President of the Dominican Republic who served three non-consecutive terms for that office from 1960 to 1962, 1966 to 1978, and 1986 to 1996.

The Social Christian Reformist Party is a Christian democratic right-wing political party in the Dominican Republic formed by the union of the 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, democratic socialist and social democratic tendencies of Juan Bosch, of the PRD and PLD, respectively.

Presidential election

The incumbent Salvador Jorge Blanco was vacating after serving 4 years in government. Although he was constitutionally allowed to run for a second term, his Dominican Revolutionary Party had a strict anti-re-election ideology.

José Salvador Omar Jorge Blanco was a politician, lawyer and a writer. He was the 48th President of the Dominican Republic, from 1982 to 1986. He was a Senator running for the PRD party. He started his political career as a Committee Secretary for the Unión Cívica de Santiago in 1963 and joined the PRD in 1964.

Dominican Revolutionary Party political party in Dominican Republic

The Dominican Revolutionary Party is one of the main political parties of the Dominican Republic. Traditionally a left of the centre position and social democratic in name, the party has shifted since the 2000s toward the centre-right. 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.

Nominations

Dominican Revolutionary Party

Since the PRD had a strict anti-re-election stance, it was assumed that Jacobo Majluta was next in line for his party's nomination. Majluta was Vice President under Antonio Guzmán Fernández and had served as President for 43 days after Guzmán committed suicide. After having been defeated by Jorge Blanco for the nomination in 1982, he was given the candidacy for Santo Domingo Senator and President of the Senate (a similar deal had been done by Blanco and Guzmán in 1978) which he won. From this position he engaged a fierce battle with the faction of the party led by Blanco and so the latter tried putting Secretary of State Hatuey Decamps against Majluta for the nomination but someone so close to the unpopular government could not stop Majluta who had become the most vocal critic of the administration. Blanco supporters then turned to party leader and Mayor of Santo Domingo, the popular José Francisco Peña Gómez. At first he did not accept it (neither declined it) but after surviving a heart attack he believed it was his destiny to become President and so he decided to run against his once closest party colleague. The race was extremely close and divisive, even causing a shoot out at the Concorde Hotel but when results came in, Majluta was declared the winner.

Jacobo Majluta Azar was Vice President of the Dominican Republic from 16 August 1978 to 4 July 1982. He was one of the generations of politicians in the Dominican Republic whose ambition was continually thwarted by the country's labyrinthine power struggles and explosive sectarianism. He was elected Vice-President in 1978 and served as President for 42 days in 1982, replacing Antonio Guzmán who had committed suicide, but he never again held the highest office which he so openly craved. Born in 1934 into a merchant family of Lebanese origin, Majluta studied finance at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo before working as an accountant in the banking and state sectors.

Silvestre Antonio Guzmán Fernández, best known as Antonio Guzmán, was a Dominican businessman and a politician. He was the 46th President of the Dominican Republic, from 1978 to 1982.

The post-convention process was traumatizing and many PRD members refused to endorse Majluta. Some Gomez supporters even went as far as to endorse Juan Bosch. Carlos Andrés Pérez President of Venezuela and strong activist of Socialist International campaigned for Gomez to be included on the ticket as Vice President but Majluta said he preferred to lose than to win alongside Peña Gomez who he felt had betrayed him by competing against him. A deal similar to the one Guzmán had made with Blanco and the latter with Majluta was offered to Gomez but he declined calling it a "cursed gift". Ultimately Nicolas Vargas of Santiago was chosen as running mate.

Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño was a Dominican politician, historian, short story writer, essayist, educator, and the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic for a brief time in 1963. Previously, he had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo for over 25 years. To this day he is remembered as an honest politician and regarded as one of the most prominent writers in Dominican literature. He founded both the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) in 1939 and the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) in 1973.

Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez also known as CAP and often referred to as El Gocho, was a Venezuelan politician, President of Venezuela from 12 March 1974 to 12 March 1979 and again from 2 February 1989 to 21 May 1993. His first presidency was known as the Saudi Venezuela due to its economic and social prosperity thanks to enormous income from petroleum exportation. However, his second period saw a continuation of the economic crisis of the 1980s, and saw a series of social crises, a popular revolt and two coup attempts in 1992. In May 1993 he became the first Venezuelan president to be forced out of the office by the Supreme Court, for the embezzlement of 250 million bolívars belonging to a presidential discretionary fund.

The President of Venezuela, officially known as the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the head of state and head of government in Venezuela. The president leads the National Executive of the Venezuelan government and is the commander-in-chief of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces. Presidential terms were set at six years with the adoption of the 1999 Constitution of Venezuela, and presidential term limits were removed in 2009.

PRSC

Ever since the foundation of the Reformist Party, Joaquín Balaguer had been its candidate in the presidential elections, a position which continued after the merger with the Christian Social Revolutionary Party to create the Christian Social Reformist Party. This caused some disgust among young reformers like Victor Gomez Berges and Fernando Alvarez Bogaert who claimed that Balaguer was too old (80) to run for the presidency, but he ultimately achieved the nomination with only token opposition from Julio Cesar Castaños Espaillat who only received one vote (his own). Balaguer chose Carlos Morales Troncoso, a successful businessman as his running mate.

Carlos Morales Troncoso was Vice President of the Dominican Republic from 1986 to 1994 and its foreign minister from 2004 to 2014.

PLD

Juan Bosch received no opposition for the nomination of the Dominican Liberation Party, which he had founded after splitting from the PRD in 1973. His running mate was former rector of the University of Santo Domingo, Jose Joaquin Bido Medina.

The Dominican Liberation Party is the current governing political party in the Dominican Republic. Founded in 1973 by former president Juan Bosch, the party, along with the Dominican Revolutionary Party, have dominated politics in the country since the establishment of democracy.

Minor parties

Narciso Isa Conde was candidate for Dominican Communist Party and famous lawyer Vincho Castillo was the candidate of his National Progressive Force.

Campaign

After eight years of PRD governments, the once great popularity of the white party was becoming mild while former President Joaquín Balaguer was surging as an alternative among the new voters and Juan Bosch was attracting dissatisfied PRD voters.

Bosch campaigned hard against alleged corruption in the Guzmán and Jorge Blanco administration even publishing what his party called the "corruption album" which consisted of pictures that were claimed to be proof of illicit enrichment of his former party mates. Attacks were also directed towards Balaguer bringing up the deaths of "the 12 years". A popular slogan during the PLD campaign was "Juan Bosch ni robo ni mato!" a reference to the lack of corruption or political murders during Juan Bosch's Presidency in 1963.

The PRD was quick to answer with "Juan Bosch ni robo ni mato...porque tiempo no le dio" poking fun at the fact that Bosch was only in government for 7 months and therefore lacked the time to do the things he accused his opponents of.^[3]

Due to the unpopularity of the Jorge Blanco administration and therefore the PRD party itself, Majluta created the Liberal Party of the Dominican Republic which would form an alliance with the PRD so that he could try to get voters who detested the incumbent party.^[4] His candidacy was also supported by Constitutional Action Party and Nationalist Democratic Party. Negotiations were also held with Elías Wessin y Wessin leader of the Democratic Quisqueya Party but these fell apart and Wessin ultimately supported Balaguer, whom he had tried to overthrow in 1971 and was exiled for it.

Balaguer conducted a vigorous campaign which attracted many young voters and old foes. Besides Wessin, he was now also supported by Donald Reid Cabral ex-President of the triumvirate that ruled the country while Balaguer was in exile, Mario Read Vittini, and many communists who had fought him in the past, including Tacito Perdomo.^[5]

After a bloody riot in 1984 which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, the PRD could no longer attack Balaguer for the dark past of his previous governments which enabled him to get much of the youth vote.

Balaguer supporters chanted "vuelve y vuelve!" at the political rallies as their victory chant referring to his possible return to the Presidency. The 80-year-old caudillo was attacked due to his blindness during the campaign to which he responded As President I will not be asked to thread needles.^[6]

Since Majluta's picture would be on four different party's ballots he feared that the less enlighthened voters who made up the PRD's core would cast votes for him in all four and thus spoiling the vote. He spent precious time campaigning to educate voters to only cast a vote for him on one ballot.

Results

President

What Majluta so greatly feared came to be when vote counts showed a great number of invalid votes. Balaguer had a lead over him but the number of invalid votes was bigger than that of the margin of victory. Jacobo tried to get the ballots counted since the great majority of these were ballots that had his face marked multiple times on the PRD and Liberal Party tickets and therefore were undeniable cast for him. On 19 May, with 92% of the votes counted, the vote count was halted and guards were placed outside the Central Elections Board and Majluta declared himself the winner despite being behind Balaguer in the tally.^[7] After appeals from Salvador Jorge Blanco, the vote counting was resumed on May 21^[8] only to be stopped again on the 22nd.^[9]

A month passed and there was still uncertainty over who had really won the election but Balaguer's margin had grown and ended up surpassing the number of invalid votes. Jacobo faced with the lack of support from his own party, popular impatience growing and Balaguer recognized as the winner by the PLD finally conceded and Balaguer after being declared a political corpse and his political career seen as a thing of the past became President for a fourth time.^[10]

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Joaquín Balaguer	Social Christian Reformist Party	877,378	41.6
Jacobo Majluta	Dominican Revolutionary Party	828,209	39.2
Juan Bosch	Dominican Liberation Party	378,881	18.4
Marino Vinicio Castillo	National Progressive Force	6,684	0.3
Narciso Isa Conde	Dominican Communist Party	5,021	0.2
Jorge Martínez Lavandier	Nationalist Democratic Party	1,202	0.1
Other candidates		15,370	0.7
Invalid/blank votes		83,710	–
Total		2,195,455	100
Source: Nohlen

Congress

Party	Votes	%	House		Senate
Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/–	Seats	+/–
PRSC-PQD-PNVC	877,830	41.6	56	+6	21	+11
PRD-PPC-MCN-UD-LE	828,209	39.2	48	–14	7	–10
Dominican Liberation Party	387,881	18.4	16	+9	2	+2
Other parties	18,275	0.9	0	–	0	–
Invalid/blank votes	83,903	–	–	–	–	–
Total	2,195,648	100	120	0	30	+3
Source: Nohlen

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References

↑ Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p247 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6
↑ Nohlen, p248
↑ Campillo Perez, Julio Genaro Historia Electoral Dominicana 1848-1986
↑ Jacobo Majluta Biography (Spanish) Archived February 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine .
↑ Leftist politicians in Dominican Governments Archived July 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine . Ahora (in Spanish)
↑ Kurlansky, Mike In the Land of the Blind Caudillo New York Times
↑ Vote Count Halted New York Times
↑ Vote count resumes in the Dominican Republic New York Times
↑ Dominican vote count stopped again New York Times
↑ Dominicans vote for Happy Days New York Times

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[N1-1] Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p247 ISBN 978-0-19-928357-6

[2] Nohlen, p248

[3] Campillo Perez, Julio Genaro Historia Electoral Dominicana 1848-1986

[4] Jacobo Majluta Biography (Spanish) Archived February 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine .

[5] Leftist politicians in Dominican Governments Archived July 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine . Ahora (in Spanish)

[6] Kurlansky, Mike In the Land of the Blind Caudillo New York Times

[7] Vote Count Halted New York Times

[8] Vote count resumes in the Dominican Republic New York Times

[9] Dominican vote count stopped again New York Times

[10] Dominicans vote for Happy Days New York Times

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