Dominican Elections: Loser Take All

...An effigy of Peha Gomez at a Balaguer election rally Pehna Gdmez' color and Haitian ancestry were made into campaign issues...

...Essentially this consisted of allowing Balaguer to reassume the presidency for a limited timespan while introducing a series of constitutional changes...

...The move provoked a PRD walk-out from the Congressional session and widespread doubts that any of the other Washington for several months...

...An hour earlier, Luis Ayala, secretary-general of the Socialist International, had talked of the PRD winning by a margin of two to one...

...As the JCE works on a simple majority vote, many critics have pointed out that Balaguer enjoys an automatic inbuilt majority...

...While allegations of fixed elections are no longer as commonplace as they once were in Latin America, they remain par for the course in the Dominican Republic...

...Pefia G6mez had strongly hinted at taking this course of action during the earlier part of the election campaign...

...Then it was the PRD government which ordered the troops to crush the rioting, with the loss of more than 100 lives...

...The PRD's support for the embargo, it was claimed, was merely proof of his anti-patriotic intentions...

...Certainly, many observers confirmed that PRD voters arrived at polling stations with their special ID cards, only to be 10NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS James Ferguson works at the Latin America Bureau in London, and is the author of Dominican Republic: Beyond The Lighthouse, distributed by Monthly Review Press...

...The Organization of American States (OAS) also expressed "its great concern" over the allegations of fraud, while the National Democratic Institute voiced its "serious concern...

...The anti-Pefia G6mez campaign was in part a direct and racist attack on the PRD leader himself and in part a crude appeal to nationalist sentiment in the Dominican Republic...

...This anger could explode into violence as it did in the so-called anti-IMF riots of April, 1984...

...In each of the seven elections held since 1966, losing candidates have filed legal challenges against JCE decisions, culminating in Juan Bosch's unsuccessful bid in 1990 to prove fraud on Balaguer's part...

...U.S...

...TV commercials showed a gesticulating Pefia G6mez accompanied by frenzied drumming or a map of Hispaniola in which a dark brown Haiti gradually spread over and covered a bright green Dominican Republic...

...Whether the Clinton Administration, preoccupied by events in Haiti and Cuba, will continue to put pressure on Balaguer remains to be seen...

...The agreement also stipulated a term of only 18 months for Balaguer...

...The statement was rejected by JCE president Garcia Lizardo who protested that he could not "accept guidelines from any international institution...

...If Balaguer honors his pledge not to run again, the PRSC will probably undergo a damaging split as rivals such as Vice-President Peynado and Carlos Morales Troncoso, a former vice-president, fight it out...

...The State Department is, however, no doubt wary of encouraging instability and anti-U.S...

...As the campaign ended in a tense polarization between the PRD and the PRSC, other parties and contenders faded away...

...This time, the term was fixed at only two years, a concession offered by Balaguer to his opponents who claim that he never won in the first place...

...He cloaked his tacit support for the Haitian regime and his own military profiteers in humanitarian rhetoric, describing the embargo as "inhumane" and "a way to punish the poor...

...Jos6 Francisco Pefia G6mez, the presidential candidate of the Socialist-affiliated Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), told his audience that the elections had been marred by "colossal fraud...

...A bizarre conspiracy theory was widely circulated which suggested that the United States, France, Canada and Venezuela intended to merge the Dominican Republic and Haiti, with Pefia G6mez acting as the "instrument of fusion...

...Eleven weeks later, the JCE had still not declared full results of presidential, congressional or local elections...

...Marines were already in Port-au-Prince and that hundreds of thousands of fleeing Haitians were streaming across the border...

...Pefia G6mez and his advisors are doubtless calculating that a fair election in May, 1996 cannot fail to bring them victory...

...Outside the press conference, PRD supporters were gathering among a relentless warbling of mobile phones in a mood close to euphoria...

...While the Christian Democrat International (of which the PRSC is an affiliate) predictably dismissed the allegations of fraud, the Socialist International--just as predictably--condemned the JCE and its handling of the election...

...To enforce the embargo would have meant an immediate confrontation with the Dominican military-historically more inclined to support Balaguer than the PRD-and the logistical problems of sealing the 170-mile border...

...A recent editorial in the conservative daily Listin Diario mused on the gradual "Haitianization" of the country...

...President Joaquin Balaguer in 1990...

...Cartoons showing Pefia G6mez as a witch doctor were anonymously faxed to offices, while a video in which the PRD leader attended a faith-healing session was widely touted as proof of his taste for "voodoo...

...It also allowed Balaguer and his supporters to engineer a deal with Pefia G6mez and the PRD...

...President Balaguer's official indifference to the embargo and alleged encouragement of crossborder trade had been irritating A PRD government might well have been the Clinton Administration's preference if it would enforce the embargo and cut off a lifeline to the military dictatorship in Haiti...

...told that their names did not appear on the list...

...Pefia G6mez has been careful to urge restraint among his militants and had called for "Gandhian" civil disobedience before the apparent compromise settlement...

...Gradually, Haiti came to dominate the election campaign...

...The outcry has never been greater than on August 16 of this year, when the 88 year old was sworn in for his seventh term of office...

...military intervention, the result took on increased significance...

...With the announcement of Juan Bosch's retirement in July, the opposition PLD will almost certainly lose more of its already declining popularity...

...The bizarre compromise which returned Balaguer to the Dominican Republic's presidential palace was the culmination of a protracted and cynical electoral imbroglio which has cast further doubts on the country's democratic credentials...

...10 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASUPDATE / DOMINICAN REPUBLIC The bizarre compromise which returned Balaguer to the presidential palace was the culmination of a protracted and cynical electoral imbroglio which has cast further doubts on the country's democratic credentials...

...The United States achieved one of its objectives with the tightening of the Haitian embargo, though recent events have rendered Dominican cooperation moot...

...Ultimately, the fear factor appeared to work against Pefia G6mez...

...W hatever the impact of the alleged fraud, there is little doubt that Balaguer polled strongly...

...The government claimed to have spent 300 million pesos ($24 million) on computerizing the electoral lists and issuing new ID cards...

...It could well have raised the stakes in other unpredictable ways, perhaps sparking an exodus of Haitian refugees across the border or provoking armed confrontation with the Haitian military...

...Finally, on August 2, the JCE discreetly announced that Balaguer had won the presidency by 22,281 votes...

...In a packed and stiflingly hot meeting room, Dr...

...Normally the outcome of a Dominican election would not have caused much excitement in the wider world...

...An agreement signed on August 10 spoke of abolishing the right to run for consecutive presidential terms, establishing an independent elecVol XXVIII, No 3 Nov/DEc 1994 11 5 S 0z 0 Vol XXVIII, No 3 Nov/DEc 1994 11UPDATE / DOMINICAN REPUBLIC toral commission, and revising the electoral lists...

...The finale to the Haiti scare campaign came on polling day itself when Santo Domingo reverberated with the rumor that U.S...

...Three months earlier, on May 16, three hours after polls officially closed in the Dominican elections, journalists and international observers were summoned to the Santo Domingo office of the Socialist International...

...And yet despite all such measures, suspicions of cheating appeared well-founded to Dominicans and foreign observers alike...

...Even so, he said, exit polls pointed to an overwhelming victory for the PRD...

...In the confused and volatile aftermath of the elections, he suddenly took the initiative on May 25 when he declared that he would "seal" the border with Haiti and prevent any further supplies of fuel from reaching Port-au-Prince...

...The issue of the embargo merged with a campaign against Pefia G6mez which sought to exploit longstanding racist and xenophobic attitudes towards Haiti by depicting the PRD leader as a covert Haitian agent hell-bent on destroying Dominican sovereignty and secretly planning to fuse the two nations...

...In 1990 it took almost two months for Balaguer's controversial victory to be confirmed...

...Running as a PLD candidate, the former president scored only 15%, performing much worse than opinion polls had suggested...

...There have been rumors in Santo Domingo that the United States might impose economic sanctions, or reassess the country's eligibility for special trade status under the Caribbean Basin Initiative...

...With its time-honored method of procrastination and secrecy, the JCE weathered a storm of protest and criticism, insisting that it would look into any allegations of electoral irregularities but repeatedly failing to do so...

...The PRD claimed that the lists delivered to the parties on computer disks before the elections were different from those held on the day by the officials presiding over the hundreds of mesas or voting stations around the country...

...Its "provisional results" in the meantime gave Balaguer a slim margin of victory of 30,000, or less than 1% of the votes...

...Although blind and physically frail, the veteran skillfully played the Haiti bogey card as well as offering his usual recipe of paternalism and populism...

...and UN special envoys William Gray and Dante Caputo, came three days after the strict UN embargo against Haiti went into effect...

...The main issue was whether a Pefia G6mez government would take a strong line against Haiti's de facto military regime and stop the flow of fuel and other embargoed items across the border...

...Backed by the considerable financial resources of his vice-presidential There is still enormous anger among Pehfa G6mez' supporter This anger could explod into violence as it did i the so-called anti-IMF ric of April, 1984...

...Washington's pressure to tighten the embargo coincided with the furor over Pefia G6mez' supposedly pro-Haitian sympathies and allowed Balaguer to present himself as the defender of Dominican sovereignty and his rival as a U.S...

...The question of Pefia G6mez's color and ancestry-he was born in the Dominican Republic of Haitian parentage-has long been a controversial issue in Dominican politics, but during this election the racist campaign reached an unprecedented intensity...

...The more impartial Washington-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems concluded that "irregularities clouded a process which was an example of civic responsibility on the part of the electorate...

...In any case, the recent elections have done little to enhance the Dominican Republic's international standing or to improve relations with Washington...

...Balaguer's political acumen is inseparable from his unpredictability...

...sentiment in the increasingly volatile Caribbean region...

...criticism of the election nonetheless persisted, with new Ambassador Donna Hrinak describing the result as "not legitimate" and the State Department declaring itself "disappointed" with the JCE's statement...

...S. On June 15, the State Department entered the controversy with a statement urgn ing the Dominican authorities to review the fraud allegations )ts and, if necessary, to hold byelections in districts where proven irregularities occurred...

...This tradition of post-election disputes, of course, made it easier for critics of the PRD to dismiss its grievances as mere ritual...

...Since the 1,500 polling stations represent about 16% of the country's total, simple arithmetic supports the PRD figure of 200,000 frustrated voters nationwide...

...provisions would actually materialize...

...With his dislike of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide all too wellknown, Balaguer simply saw no reason to deprive the Dominican military and certain enterpreneurs of lucrative business with Haiti for a political objective which he did not share...

...It referred not to Haitian immigration or the spectre of a unitary state, but rather to the fact that the Dominican Republic is in danger of following its tortured neighbor in losing its slim democratic credibility and already precarious social stability...

...Despite the JCE's claims to political neutrality, three out of the five members are perceived as Balagueristas...

...The JCE had been enlarged from three to five members, with guaranteed representation for opposition parties...

...Balaguer said that he was ordering 10,000 troops to the border and that they would fully cooperate with the handful of UN monitors sent to observe the enforcement of sanctions...

...Indeed, in the case of veteran caudillo, Joaqufn Balaguer, such allegations are almost as predictable as his electoral victories...

...But with the Haitian crisis, the UN embargo and the scenario of U.S...

...The PRD repeatedly accused the JCE of engineering widespread fraud...

...In a series of statements and press conferences, Pefia G6mez and other party leaders insisted that at least 200,000 PRD voters had been removed from the voters' lists through the fraudulent alteration of the electoral register...

...pawn...

...The next day the euphoria was already turning sour as the first televised bulletins of the Central Electoral Junta (JCE), the nominally independent electoral board, began to give preliminary results which showed Pefia G6mez trailing the incumbent president and fivetime winner, Balaguer...

...With the four-day radio and TV news blackout mandated by the JCE, such rumors were highly effective...

...It is less certain whether the United States will achieve its goal of nurturing "good governance" in the Dominican Republic...

...A "revision committee," established by the JCE to investigate the fraud allegations, found that more than 28,000 voters had been deliberately disenfranchised by having their names removed from electoral lists at the 1,500 polling stations which it investigated...

...In every case, the JCE has taken weeks and sometimes months to produce a final result...

...Juan Bosch, in particular, made little impact...

...More jaundiced commentators, meanwhile, pointed out that accusations of foul play and delays are almost synonymous with the Dominican electoral process...

...The JCE's delaying tactics allowed some of the popular anger at the conduct of the election to fizzle into apathy and resignation...

...Other allegations con- cerned the selling of ID cards, the fate of the cards sent out to region- al JCE offices but not claimed by voters, and the use of state resources to finance the campaign of Balaguer's ruling Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC...

...There is still enormous anger among Pefia G6mez' supporters, especially in the slums of Santo Domingo...

...His economic record was also an asset, since he could claim to have reduced inflation from more than 100% to single figures, to have renegotiated the $4.5 billion debt, and to have presided over strong economic growth...

...candidate, Jacinto Peynado, as well as those of the state, Balaguer toured the country by helicopter or balaguerm6vil, inaugurating a seemingly endless number of schools, irrigation systems and health clinics...

...This part of the deal, however, was summarily dumped two days later when Congress met and an alliance between the PRSC and the Party of Dominican Liberation (PLD) amended the period to two years...

...The various bodies of international observers took different stances...

...But as the campaign developed, it became apparent that the Haitian issue was much more of a liability than an asset to Pefia G6mez, and he avoided it whenever possible...

...But this year the elections were supposed to be fraud-proof and transparent...

...In the end, the JCE merely ignored the committee's findings...

...Party representatives watched the voting at each mesa and were present at the opening of the ballot boxes and the counting of ballots...

...The declaration, following a meeting with U.S...