In the end it was their common enemy and perennial
nemesis, Jos Francisco Pefia G6mez, who brought
Joaquin Balaguer and Juan Bosch together in a final,
ironic act of reconciliation. The meeting of the two veteran caudilos in June, 1996 to launch the so-called National Patriotic Front and ensure the victory of Leonel Fernandez symbolized the end of 30 years of
political rivalry. It also typified the personalism and cynicism which have run through Dominican politics
during the Balaguer-Bosch decades. The 1996 presidential campaign was the first in
thtee decades in which both men had been forced to watch as mere observers. Balaguer was precluded from running as the price paid for his dubious “vic- tory” in 1994, and Bosch was sidelined by age, ill1
health and the rise of his prot8g6, Fernandez. As Fern ndez trailed Peha G6mez-the real winner of
the 1994 election-in the first round, it seemed pos- sible that the two caudilos’ shared nightmare, a
Peha G4mez presidency, might materialize. For Bosch, it threatened the triumph of an old adversary,
and recalled the bitter struggles of the 1970s for con- trol of the PRD. For Balaguer, it raised the specter of
inquiries into corruption and human rights viola-
tions, as well as the abrupt dismantling of the anillo palaciego, the “palace ring” of cronies and support- ers. Unceremoniously dumping his own party’s candi-
date, Jacinto Peynado, Balaguer embraced his old
enemy in a last and successful bid to frustrate Pehia G6mez.
Even by the standards of Dominican politics, in which individual ambition and opportunism have
typically outweighed party allegiance, this unholy alliance seemed cynical. For 30 years, Bosch and Balaguer had been locked in a bitter and intractable
struggle. Balaguer was usually the winner, beginning
in 1966 when the United States ensured that he defeat a muted Bosch in post-invasion elections. His promise of “social peace” led to the murder of thou-
sands of Bosch supporters in the barrios of Santo
Domingo by the paramilitaries of La Banda.
Convinced that running against Balaguer was futile,
Bosch boycotted the polls in 1970 and 1974. In 1990, having painstakingly built up the PLD, Bosch was again cheated of political power by what had then
become his opponent’s well-rehearsed process of electoral fraud. Even when Bosch had jettisoned any residual radi- calism, Balaguer’s propaganda machine was able to
paint him as an unstable extremist. In 1990, when he
was extolling the virtues of privatization and foreign
BY JAMES FERGUSON
investment, Balaguer skillfully tarnished him with
blame for the chaos of the 1960s. He was continually outmaneuvered by Balaguer, and became the peren- nial runner-up. That he should ultimately have wel-
comed Balaguer’s support may therefore seem per-
verse, but he reasoned that only with Balaguer’s
support could he ensure Fernandez’s victory and,
above all, keep Pefa Gomez out of the presidential palace. Popular legend has it that despite their history of official antagonism, the two caudillos have always expressed mutual respect and admiration. And to
avoid the threat of widespread armed confrontation between their supporters, they have entered into a series of informal agreements dating back to the 1960s, which led to Bosch accepting self-exile in 1966. They share a similar background. Both were born
into middle-class white families of recent Hispanic migrants, and both have established reputations as
literary figures and historians and often operate
within a world of bookish gentility. (A cursory read- ing of Balaguer’s racist La Isla al Revis, however, reveals his intellectual shallowness.) Both, too, have managed to avoid allegations of personal corruption
and thereby have been able to claim the high moral
ground of Dominican politics. They have much more in common than back-
ground and tastes. The trademark of the Balaguer- Bosch period was the primacy of the leader, e jefe, and the cult of personality which both men culti-
vated. While Balaguer created an aura of omni- science, mixing authoritarianism with paternalism, Bosch proclaimed his own infallibility; demanding total allegiance from his party cadres. Both leaders saw their parties as personal vehicles, molded in their
image and subservient to their will. The intense fac- tionalism of Dominican party politics reinforced this megalomania and led to a dramatic series of splits
and alliances. When the (then) left-leaning Bosch lost control of the PRD to Pehia G6mez in the 1970s, he
simply resigned and formed his own party-the PLD-rather than suffer the indignity of playing a supporting role. Balaguer was more adept at neu- tralizing would-be successors and coopting rivals. But
when he finally lost the PRSC candidacy to Peynado, the party itself no longer mattered and he did not
even deign to cast his vote. The reverse side of personalismo in both men has
been a changeable, unpredictable, repertoire of ide-
ology. Bosch moved from the social-democratic nationalism of the 1960s, through an idiosyncratic
Marxism to the born-again neoliberalism of his last electoral campaign. Many of his traditional support- ers were left demoralized by this rightward trajec- tory. In the meantime, Balaguer was able to shrug off
his image as
Trujillo’s puppet
and forge
several complementary
identities-the
defender of
Dominican
nationhood,
the economic
modernizer
and the benevolent
patriarch
who brought
water and electricity
to grateful
villages.
Balaguer could
one day be an
exemplary anticommunist,
and an advocate
of closer
ties with Cuba
the next. He
might defend
the state sector
as the “national
patrimony”
while simultanec
privatization po
diction in mixin
tough austerity
position was fir!
mation of his Ih
there was no disc
ence between t
he
la
ft,
re
jei
rat
e
common claim to personal authority.
In this respect, Bosch and Balaguer were both products
of the Trujillo dictatorship and its culture of
authoritarianism. But while Bosch defined himself
squarely in terms of opposition to Trujillo, Balaguer
emerged from the wreckage of the dictatorship, able
to reassure the country’s power brokers-the military,
the church, competing economic elites and the
United States-that business would continue as usual.
Bosch’s promise of “starting from scratch” in the
aftermath of Trujillo’s death may have rallied popular
support, but it threatened vested interests and worried
an already nervous U.S. State Department.
Balaguer, in contrast, offered a sort of continuity, distancing
himself from the excesses of the trujillata but
promising its beneficiaries more of the same.
And in terms of winning votes-fairly as well as
unfairly-Balaguer consistently outplayed Bosch.
Using state
resources as
if they were
his private
domain, he
oversaw highprofile
public
works, providing
housing,
schools and
clinics in return
for polit-
Although Bosch
ed a sweeping
orm in 1963, litlized.
Balaguer,
er hand, recogimportance
of
ntry, made a
of handing out
and improving
structure. Time
, conservative
ittees voted for
some elements
elites came to
he latter-day
more rememearlier
pledges
alization and
ghts and opted
Balaguer.
ect, the real diftween
the two
ere as much tacategic
as politi-
!r’s genius lay in
defusing opposition, balancing opposing economic
and political forces, and using the divide-and-rule
principle. Manipulative and unaccountable, he took
credit for successes but rarely accepted blame.
Bosch’s weakness was precisely the lack of such skills.
Over-cautious in power, intemperate in opposition,
he managed to antagonize radicals and conservatives
alike.
The final reconciliation of June, 1996 closed an
overlong chapter of Dominican history. A generation
of Dominicans were alienated or excluded from politics
by the Bosch-Balaguer dominance and the cult
of the leader. For decades, personalism, clientelism
and deal-making eclipsed democratic development.
If the newly elected “modernizers” wish to move
their country out of its anachronistic political culture,
this is the pervasive legacy that they will have to
abandon.
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