In the eastern urban sprawl of Santo
Domingo, a vast concrete cross-shaped
structure is rising steadily into the capi-
tal’s skyline. A ramshackle and over-
crowded barrio was torn down, and
thousands of families were evicted to
clear the way for the so-called Colum-
bus Lighthouse. According to the gov-
emment, each was rehoused in a mod-
em apartment; organizations working
with the ousted communities insist the
families were lucky to receive $50 each
before seeing their houses bulldozed.
Santo Domingo is being beautified
for the forthcoming celebrations of the
quincentenary, the 500th anniversary
of the arrival of Christopher Columbus
to what is now the Dominican Repub-
lic. Old colonial streets have been re-
stored, while modern apartment blocks
have gone up along the main avenues to
James Ferguson is the author of
Grenada: Revolution in Reverse and
Far From Paradise: An Introduction to
Caribbean Development (Latin Amer-
ica Bureau, London).
and from the airport. But while the
building continues relentlessly, the
infrastructure is visibly cracking. Many
areas of the city and most rural regions
receive no more than three or four hours
of electricity per day, and potable water
is a precious commodity. Vast potholes
have appeared in the capital’s streets,
while uncollected garbage lies rotting
on the sidewalks and rats are seen in
broad daylight even in “good” neigh-
borhoods. Typhoid broke out in July.
The contrast between grandiose
public works and neglected services is
to many Dominicans the hallmark of
President Joaquin Balaguer’s admini-
stration. Now 83 years old and blind,
Balaguer has dominated Dominican
politics since the assassination of the
dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in
1961. Once Trujillo’s secretary and
acting president, Balaguer has ruled the
country since 1966, with only an eight-
year hiatus (1978-1986). Both authori-
tarian and paternalistic, his style of
government inspires loyalty from many
of the rural immigrants who have
flooded into the capital in recent years.
But many more Dominicans view
Balaguer as an anachronism, a hold-
over from a previous generation. The
Columbus Lighthouse, say critics, is
characteristic of the president’s mega-
lomania: a monument as much to him
as to Columbus.
Balaguer’s sixth term in office be-
gan in August on an inauspicious note
of disarray. A gathering of the National
Assembly on July 18 was intended to
hear the official declaration of his elec-
tion victory. Unfortunately, due to a
boycott of the ceremony by opposition
parties, the Chamber of Deputies failed
to reach the required quorum. The
Assembly waited seven hours while
helicopters were sent to fetch absent
deputies from outlying districts. Not
until late in the afternoon were enough
elected members of Balaguer’s Partido
Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC)
present to hear what everybody already
knew-that the ruling party and vet-
eran president had won yet another
four years in power.
The response in Santo Domingo
was perhaps best described as resigned
and cynical. After the May 16 elec-
tions, it was apparent that the PRSC
would be credited with victory, albeit
by a very slim majority. What was less
apparent was the extent to which the
widespread accusations of electoral
fraud would undermine the govern-
ment’s credibility. As soon as the pre-
liminary results were announced by the
Junta Central Electoral (JCE), the two
main opposition parties rallied behind
calls that Balaguer had cheated. Juan
Bosch’s historically left-leaning Par-
tido de la Liberaci6n Dominicana (PLD)
maintained that Balaguer’s Reformis-
tas had conspired with the JCE to per-
petuate the fraud. The social-demo-
cratic Partido de la Revoluci6n Dom-
inicana (PRD), headed by Jos6 Fran-
cisco Pefia G6mez, also complained
that the PRSC had cheated in order to
secure an edge in the Senate.
The most common accusations were
that the PRSC had falsified voter regis-
tration lists and identity cards, allow-
ing thousands of Balaguer supporters
to vote at least twice. The PLD also
alleged that 10,000 military personnel,
constitutionally barred from voting, had
taken part in the poll. With Balaguer’s
lead over Bosch put at only 24,000, the
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 4C
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Once the mansion of former dictator Trujillo, this building is now occupied
by 92 squatter families: Political leaders still hail from the Trujillo period
PLD claimed that these tricks-together
with computer fraud-were enough to
settle the contest in Balaguer’s favor.
And there were damaging rumors sur-
rounding the JCE: According to one
PLD official, the electoral council turned
a blind eye to the fraud because its
president, Dr. Froilin Tavares, owed a
special debt of gratitude to Balaguer,
who had once helped Tavares’ son evade
drug charges.
Playing by the Old Rules
Allegations of fraud and bureau-
cratic incompetence, of course, are part
and parcel of the four-yearly Domini-
can electoral process. Every election
since the end of the 30-year Trujillo
dictatorship has been clouded by accu-
sations of cheating, long delays in
announcing results and even military
intervention. Thus, the PLD’s latest
allegations raised few eyebrows.
After the provisional results were
announced, an incensed Bosch called
on his supporters to take to the streets,
but he withdrew the call the following
day. When the final figures were made
public two weeks later, the PLD organ-
ized a two-day general strike in “na-
tional mourning,” though, except for
the national university, there was scant
response in Santo Domingo. Many
smaller towns and villages, however,
were effectively closed down for 48
hours, and several clashes with security
VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990)
forces were reported. But this was only
a symbolic show of strength, with no
clear objectives and little coordination.
Fraud aside, Balaguer’s victory re-
flected substantial but declining sup-
port among sectors of Dominican soci-
ety. Those benefitting from the PRSC’s
pork-barrel politics and from the con-
struction boom voted for Balaguer, as
did traditional conservatives and the
older land-owning elite. His election
slogan–‘ un camino sin peligro” (“a
safe path”)-played on fears that an
administration headed by Juan Bosch
would return the country to the instabil-
ity and civil war of the 1960s, when
Bosch spent a rocky seven months as
president before being ousted in a U.S.-
inspired coup. Yet Bosch’s program
contained little that was radical and
hardly differed from Balaguer’s in its
emphasis on tourism, agribusiness and
export-led manufacturing as the basis
for economic recovery. Choosing a well-
known businessman as his vice-presi-
dential running mate, Bosch presented
himself as an ally of local and foreign
investors and tried to capitalize on the
growing rift between Balaguer and more
progressive elements within the Do-
minican business community. Speeches
emphasizing the PLD’s commitment to
private enterprise and a deregulated
economy confirmed Bosch’s conspicu-
ous rightward drift since the early 1980s.
Bosch’s defeat was partly due to a
number of well-publicized controver-
sies during the run-up to the elections.
Remarks concerning the influence of
the Catholic Church and the armed
forces in Dominican life were inter-
preted by the pro-government media as
proof of the 80-year-old contender’s
atheism and anti-militarism. More
worrying for large numbers of workers
in the extensive state sector were the
PLD’s pledges to deregulate and pri-
vatize public utilities and companies as
part of its modernization campaign.
Even so, Bosch scored an achievement
by raising the PLD’s voting percentage
to 34%, from 10% in 1982 and 18% in
1986, ousting Pefia G6mez’s PRD as
the country’s main opposition party.
The principal factor in Balaguer’s
victory was undoubtedly the division
within the opposition. According to the
JCE’s figures, the victorious PRSC and
its allied parties (notably the small right-
wing Partido Quisqueyano Dem6crata)
received a mere 35% of the vote. The
PLD won its 34%, while Pefia G6mez’s
PRD confounded pollsters with 23%.
Abstention was estimated at half of all
eligible voters. While high abstention
is not unknown in Dominican elec-
tions, the split vote was unprecedented,
making this the first truly three-party
contest since 1966.
The political malaise affected the
Left, too, still traumatized by the sectar-
ian splits of the early 1980s. Most
groups, including the Partido Comunista
Dominicano (PCD) boycotted the elec-
tion. The Bloque Socialista, led by
Rafael “Fafa” Tavares, however, sup-
The Columbus Lighthouse: A
monument as much to Balaguer as
to Columbus
ccported Pefia G6mez’s presidential
campaign, having earlier and unsuc-
cessfully campaigned for a wide anti-
Balaguer alliance. Tavares’ electoral
alliance with the PRD was condemned
by other left-wing groups as opportun-
istic, and the Bloque Socialista received
a mere 0.14% of the vote, but gained
one seat in the Chamber of Deputies.
The Partido de los Trabajadores Dom-
inicanos (PTD) also backed Pefia
G6mez with the same results: 0.14% of
the vote and a seat in Congress.
Compared to the two aged caudil-
los, Pefia G6mez ran a vigorous and ef-
fective campaign. The PRD was forced
to compete against a dissident faction,
led by conservative former president
Jacobo Majluta, whose new Partido
Revolucionario Independiente (PRI)
won almost 7% of the vote. The PRD
had also to overcome a negative image
of corruption and incompetence inher-
ited from its eight years in office (1978-
1986). Nevertheless, Pefia G6mez suc-
THE BOSCH PENDULUM
INTERVIEW WITH ROBERTO CASSA BY ROBERT FOX & MICHAEL KAMBER
Dominican historian Roberto Cassd,
has observed Juan Bosch for most of the
latter’s checkered career. In this excerpt
from a longer interview, Cassd discusses
Bosch’s evolution from a “pro-Marxist
populist,” to the candidate “with the most
coherent plan for restructuring Domini-
can capitalism.”
Bosch has been a key actor on the Do-
minican political scene since 1939, when
from exile in Puerto Rico he founded the
left-leaning Partido Revolucionario Dom-
inicano (PRD) to oppose the Trujillo dic-
tatorship. A year after Trujillo’s assassi-
nation in 1961, he won the presidency
only to be overthrown seven months later.
When the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
1965 U.S. invasion rolled around last
April, Bosch was aspiring to return to the
presidency. But this was a Bosch for the
1990s, unlikely to offend the UnitedStates
and, according to Cassd, to the right of
even his former antagonists.
“Juan Bosch started out as a pro-
Marxist populist, during his first exile in
the early 1940s. Later, when Latin Ameri-
can populism turned anticommunist,
Bosch followed suit. By the time he re-
turned to the Dominican Republic in 1961,
after the fall of Trujillo, he was already an
cessfully applied a radical gloss to the
party’s traditional populism, arguing
strongly in favor of improved wages
and living conditions for the majority of
Dominicans. As a result, he won large
sectors of the country’s poorest voters
to his cause, even if the PRD was pushed
into third place for the first time in its
50-year history. Some political com-
mentators now place Pefia G6mez, 53,
as the frontrunner for the 1994 presi-
dential elections, despite the handicap
of being a descendant of Haitian immi-
grants in a largely racist society.
The Next Generation
The question of age is now upper-
most in many Dominicans’ minds. It
seems unlikely that either Balaguer or
Bosch will run again, but as yet no heir
to either of the two leading parties has
appeared. The power-struggle within
the PRSC is reputed to be intense, with
Jacinto Peynado, elected senator for
Juan 5oscn: s sll campaigning, now
as a neoliberal
anticommunist, a replica of Venezuela’s
R6mulo Betancourt.
“The Venezuelan elite accepted Betan-
court in 1960, but the Dominican elite
would not accept Bosch, even though there
was basically no difference between
Bosch’s platform and the other currents of
Latin American populism. The Left didn’t
participate in the 1962 elections because it
was still caught up in the idea of organiz-
ing a guerrilla foco like Fidel Castro’s
movement in Cuba. Bosch, on the other
hand, had the skill to propose social re-
forms. He knew how to win people over
by offering immediate solutions to press-
ing problems. He won the presidency in
Santo Domingo, said to be a favorite.
Such has been the stranglehold of the
two political veterans on their respec-
tive parties that a smooth succession
appears unlikely. The PLD and the
PRSC have become synonymous with
Bosch and Balaguer and will lose much
of their identity when the caudillos are
forced to retire. Whether the PRSC will
continue to defend the role of the state
against the PLD’s more neoliberal
stance remains to be seen. It is also
questionable whether the PLD will
retain its momentum with the depar-
ture of the charismatic Bosch. The
struggle between a post-Bosch PLD
and Pefia G6mez’s PRD will be par-
ticularly intense, since the two parties
appeal to largely the same constitu-
ency, even if Balaguer’s slim majority
does encourage a short-term tactical
alliance.
At the same time, while the cast of
political characters has remained much
the same over the years, the country’s
1962, but was ousted seven months later,
with the help of the army, the Catholic hi-
erarchy, and the United States.
“After his overthrow, Bosch started
to distance himself even more from the
powerful groups in Dominican society.
In 1963 he had been ready to govern on
behalf of the elites, to modernize Do-
minican capitalism. But the elites couldn’t
comprehend this. They equated Bosch’s
platform-social reforms, agrarian re-
form, industrialization-with commu-
nism. So they got rid of him. Bosch felt
wounded (here, we have to add a bit of
psychology to the analysis), and to re-
coup he was forced to depend on an
increasingly radical popular movement.
This is not something he decided unilat-
erally: The popular resistance to the 1963
coup generated its own momentum that
propelled it-closer and closer to the Left.
And Bosch was pulled along.
“Even so, what Bosch really wanted
was an agreement with the army, the
United States and the elites. The 1965
military revolt that he planned and di-
rected from Puerto Rico was not intended
to be a popular insurrection, only a coup
d’etat. Bosch thought the coup would go
off as planned and he would return to
power to do basically the same things he
had tried to do in 1963.
“What happened next is well known:
an insurrection and the U.S. invasion; an
immediate polarization and a flood of
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6social and economic features have
changed enormously. This dislocation
between the archaic political model,
based on paternalism, and the new so-
cio-economic realities of massive ur-
banization and emigration, the infor-
mal sector and export-led manufactur-
ing, makes the electoral ritual irrele-
vant to increasing numbers of Domini-
cans. “The main political leaders date
from the Trujillo period,” observes so-
ciologist Vanna lanni, “and they hardly
appeal to voters who were born in the
1 9 70s.”
If Balaguer’s political style is ar-
chaic, say his critics, so, too, is his
economic policy. The Dominican Re-
public is gradually moving away from
dependence on sugar to the new foreign
exchange earners of tourism, offshore
manufacturing, and remittances from
the Dominican community in the United
States. Yet Balaguer’s instincts remain
rooted in the paternalistic bureaucracy
of trujillismo. The state, formerly
support for the Left. Again, Bosch couldn’t
avoid being swept along and, in fact, he
became rapidly radicalized. He had to
face the obvious truth that the United
States had shut him out of power. So,
inspired not so much by ideology as by an
intelligent evaluation of what was hap-
pening at the time (the Left was the only
force capable of sustaining him), Bosch
became its leader, gradually displacing
the leftist political parties. He lost to
Balaguer [in the 1966 elections], then
went into exile, as part of a series of
informal agreements with Balaguer.
“Once in exile, Bosch became very
theoretical and proclaimed himself a
Marxist. He went to Cuba and received an
award from Fidel. In the late 1960s, Bosch
published a document entitled “Dictator-
ship With Popular Support,” aprogramto
establish himself at the head of a leftist
government. Bosch did flirt with Marx-
ism; however, he never claimed to be a
Marxist-Leninist. He admitted to accept-
ing Marxism as a tool of analysis, but he
never systematically advocated socialist
revolution. He spoke more of national
liberation than of socialism. Of course,
the Right was not that far off the mark
when it called Bosch a communist, be-
cause his discourse really was very close
to that of the communists, and he did try to
persuade communists to join up with him.
“In the early 1970s, Bosch was faced
with a dilemma: He wanted to maintain
Trujillo’s private domain, is still an
important economic actor, holding in-
terests in sugar, utilities and several
large construction and manufacturing
firms. Despite its record of mismanage-
ment and financial insolvency, the
public sector remains a pillar of
Balaguer’s economic program, provid-
ing ample territory for political appoint-
ments and favoritism. The president is
happy to take credit for the boom in
tourism and the Free Trade Zones dur-
ing the last twenty years, although
economists and business leaders insist
the government’s Draconian fiscal
policies are a disincentive to invest-
ment.
The business community has been
openly critical of government policy,
particularly the handling of the coun-
try’s foreign exchange shortage. The
tourist industry was outraged by
Balaguer’s attempt to force all foreign
visitors to change $100 at the official
exchange rate, a move that was quickly
his radical discourse, but more than that
he wanted to keep control of the PRD
against an opposition sector led by [Jos6
Francisco] Pefia G6mez. By that time,
given the relative stability of the political
situation, the United States had begun to
make contact with groups outside of
Balaguer’s clique. By 1971, the United
States was linking up with members of the
PRD in order to isolate Bosch, and an
intense power struggle was underway
within the party. Old leftists like Pefia
G6mez and [Jacobo] Majluta were pulled
along by the rightist drift of the PRD, and
Bosch withdrew [in 1973] to form the
Partido de la Liberaci6n Dominicana
(PLD). He remained politically marginal
for several years, and this isolation made
him even more disposed to try to create a
base among the old guard Left.
“The new, more conservative PRD
won the presidency in 1978, while Bosch
stayed in the leftist camp. Once in power,
however, the PRD lost support and was
weakened by infighting. Bosch realized
that it was the right time for a comeback,
but that the leftist option was no longer
viable. In 1981 then, with an eye toward
the 1982 elections, he veered noticeably
to the right. In 1982, the PLD was still
somewhat of a leftist party, but by 1986
there was virtually no substantive differ-
ence between the platforms of the PRD
and the PLD. And by the 1990 elections,
the PLD’s program was actually to the
dropped. Policy shifts of this sort led
many industrialists to support Bosch
during the election campaign, but oth-
ers continued to be skeptical of all the
candidates. “There is no party in the
country that represents the interests of
the private sector,” one leading busi-
nessman remarked. “Because of our
caudillos, a whole generation of quali-
fied and competent Dominicans has
been excluded from the political proc-
ess.”
A number of organizations have
surfaced outside the discredited party
system. On the one hand, there are the
local popular movements which sprang
up during the anti-IMF protests of the
early 1980s. Generally focused on
struggles for better services in poor
barrios, they have shown a militancy
absent in the main opposition parties.
On the other, a group called Moderno,
founded in late 1989 by younger entre-
preneurs and technbcrats, provides a
mouthpiece for the modernizing cur-
right of all the other major political par-
ties, advocating economic privatization.
“There is nothing leftist anymore
about the PLD’s platform: Bosch has re-
turned to his anticommunist populism,
and his electoral program is really the
most coherent plan for restructuring
Dominican capitalism. If the upper class
had any political sense, it would be behind
Bosch, but he has only been accepted
fully by a sophisticated sector of the elite.
“The PLD continues to be a social
democratic-style alternative. even with-
out the theoretical philosophy of social
democracy. Within the PLD, there are
still many people who consider them-
selves leftists. Why do they work for the
PLD, with a rightist program? Because
they believe that at the moment there is
nothing else to do. For one thing, they are
faithful followers of Bosch. Bosch is a
caudillo leader, and they trust that what
‘eljefe’ does is correct. Secondly, they are
looking for a way to survive politically, to
be able to form a democratic, reformist
government: privatize, but then improve
living conditions through state programs
in education, health, housing and welfare.
They see the PLD as an arena for social
action. There is another important point:
Many in the PLD, people on the Left, feel
strongly that the time has come to take
power, that they have spent too much time
out of power and that for the party to
survive it has to get back into office.”
VOLUME XXIV. NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 7
VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 7rent within the Dominican business
community. Neither Moderno nor the
popular movements, however, have
articulated a coherent national program,
and neither sector intervened notably
during the election campaign.
Meanwhile, as President Balaguer
begins yet another term of office he
faces unprecedented political and eco-
nomic problems. If the opposition par-
ties unite in Congress, the Reformista
government will face difficulties in
pursuing its program of anti-inflation-
ary austerity. This program was un-
veiled before Balaguer’s inauguration
and consists of devaluing the peso,
removing certain food subsidies and
raising gas prices by 80%. In the first of
a threatened series of general strikes, an
unusually united bloc of trade unions
and community groups protested against
the package of measures during the first
week in August. Rioting and retaliation
by security forces resulted in eleven
dead and more than 1,000 arrested.
It was an IMF-approved package of
this sort which provoked widespread
rioting and 100 deaths in 1984 during
the last PRD government, and the
memory of that upheaval has deterred
Balaguer from further negotiations with
the IMF. But the remorseless deteriora-
tion of living standards means that more
such explosions are by no means un-
likely. With the Persian Gulf crisis
pushing oil prices higher, the govern-
ment’s room to maneuver is limited.
Repayments on an $800 million debt to
commercial banks have already been
suspended, and the Dominican Repub-
lic owes over $4.5 billion to bilateral
and multilateral lenders. Inflation esti-
mated at 80% in 1989 has been fueled
by Balaguer’s extravagant building
program, while unemployment may be
as high as 40%.
Balaguer’s main priority, it seems,
is to stay alive long enough to preside
over the Columbus anniversary cele-
brations. The climax of these events
will be the inauguration of the Light-
house, which, it is boasted, will project
a beam visible all over the Caribbean.
According to a Dominican joke, though,
when the Lighthouse is switched on,
the blind president is unlikely to notice
its most dramatic effect: the final col-
lapse of the capital’s creaking electrical
system and Santo Domingo’s plunge
into darkness.
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