The Dominican Republic changes its ruling party
The new president has a solid mandate, but the pandemic and a severe recession will hobble him
FOR A WHILE the Dominican Republic seemed doomed to a year of electoral chaos. Local elections in February were cancelled halfway through polling day because new voting machines malfunctioned. (A manual re-run in March succeeded.) A general election was due in May but covid-19 forced a two-month delay. To postpone it further would have required a constitutional change. When it went ahead on July 5th, chaos gave way to clarity. More than half of voters picked Luis Abinader, a businessman, to be president. That avoided a run-off. Early results suggest his Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) will have majorities in both houses of Congress.
Mr Abinader’s victory unseats the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), which has ruled for 20 of the past 24 years. Although power transfers in the country are rare, they do not necessarily bring change. Dominican politics is characterised by consensus on business-friendly centrism, and a propensity for corruption, clientelism and infighting that weakens, but does not prevent, its implementation. Mr Abinader must fight those old plagues while tackling the new one, which threatens to do lasting damage to the economy.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "A rare power shift"
From the July 11th 2020 edition
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