Salvador Jorge Blanco

Salvador Jorge Blanco (1982)

José Salvador Omar Jorge Blanco (born July 5, 1926 in Santiago de los Caballeros , † December 26, 2010 in Santo Domingo ) was a Dominican politician of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD). He was President of the Dominican Republic from 1982 to 1986 .

biography

Studies and promotion to senator

After attending school at the Academia de Santa Ana and the Escuala Norma Ulises Francisco Espaillat in his hometown, he completed a law degree at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo , which he completed in August 1950 with a dissertation on La unidad de Jurisdicción analizada en el ejercicio de la acción pública y la acción civil graduation. After postgraduate studies at the Complutense University of Madrid , which he completed in 1951 with a dissertation on El Asilo político , he worked as a lawyer.

He began his political career in 1963 as secretary of the committee of the Unión Cívica of Santiago de los Caballeros , but the following year he became a member of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD). In the interim government of Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño , he was Attorney General from April to September 1965 and member of the delegation to negotiate the treatment of the victims of the Dominican Revolution. At the same time, he was significantly involved in the reorganization of constitutional law.

Jorge Blanco was a member of the National Executive Committee and Political Commission between 1966 and 1973 and then President of the PRD from 1977 to 1979. In between he was chairman of the bar association from 1973 to 1975 and then from 1975 to 1976 a member of the commission for the drafting of a commercial code (Código de Comercio). In 1978 he was elected a member of the Senate (Senado), where he was also the spokesman for the Distrito Nacional .

President 1982 to 1986 and later life

After the suicide of President Antonio Guzmán Fernández on July 4, 1982 and the one-month transitional presidency of the previous Vice-President Jacobo Majluta , he was sworn in as President of the Dominican Republic on August 16, 1982 after his successful election on May 16, 1982. Despite the same party affiliation of Guzmán Fernández and Jorge Blanco joined the two bitter controversy that ultimately led to Jorge Blanco the PRD in the Senate to opposition called against the government of Guzmán. There were increasing rumors of corruption and nepotism within the Guzmán government and especially his family. When Jorge Blanco took office, hopes of a clear break in the patrimonialism of the previous president and the influence of the army were linked, especially since the PRD under Jorge Blanco with 17 of 27 seats in the Senate and 62 of 120 seats in the House of Representatives ( Cámara de Diputados ) had absolute majorities in parliament.

However, his power restrictions soon became clear, for example in April 1984 when sharp price increases as part of an economic stabilization program due to the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led to mass unrest with numerous deaths. This clouded the efforts of the government with regard to civil rights and human rights , with which the PRD actually wanted to show strong differences to the previous presidency of Joaquín Balaguer . Finally, the nomination of the presidential candidate in November 1985, with which the PRD wanted to continue the internal party's democratic procedures, ended with an exchange of fire at the conference venue, the Concorde Hotel in Santiago . Jorge Blanco ruled the Dominican Republic at a time of dramatic economic difficulties that was largely imposed by the IMF. In 1985 there was a negative growth rate for the first time since the civil war of 1965 .

On August 16, 1986, Balaguer succeeded him in the office of President. At the end of his tenure, he was indeed seen by many as one of the most promising politicians of the Dominican Republic, but he had on 30 April 1987 after long interrogations and an arrest warrant for suspected corruption due to illegal purchase of military equipment material into the Embassy of Venezuela , flee where he applied for political asylum . However, a heart attack resulted in his being placed in a hospital in Santo Domingo after the Venezuelan government rejected his asylum application. He was then allowed medical treatment in the United States , provided the warrant was enforceable . In November 1988, President Balaguer announced further prosecutions for corruption and Jorge Blanco was charged in absentia, resulting in a multi-million dollar fine and 23 years imprisonment. The indictment in the court case, which was publicized on television for months, was represented by the later top drug investigator Marino Vinicio Castillo.

In May 2001 there was a revision of the proceedings before the Supreme Court, which led to the finding that the proceedings had been steered by massive interference by Balaguer. The judgment was overturned for this reason. Jorge Blanco, who always denied the allegations, saw himself as a victim of political persecution by his opponent Joaquín Balaguer.

Jorge Blanco was most recently a lawyer and member of the law firm Jorge Mera & Villegas in Santo Domingo. As a partner in the firm, he mainly dealt with banking law, constitutional law , criminal law , civil law , corporate law , privatization and procedural law .

death

Jorge Blanco has been in a coma for 36 days since falling on November 20, 2010 . At the end of November 2010, there were reports of the president's death in the media for a few hours. However, he did not die until the morning of December 26, 2010.

Publications

• 1969: Forms for Attachment Ways
• 1981: Conferences
• 1985: Justice and Press
• 1985: Political Asylum
• 1986: The Jurisdictional Unit Analyzed in the Exercise of the Public Action and Civil Action
• 1986: International Relationships
• 1986: Subjects for the Press
• 1986: National Battles
• 1986: Duarte, Espaillat, Hostos and Capotillo
• 1986: Archipelago of Interests
• 1986: For Democracy
• 1986: Goals and Achievements
• 1986: Presidential Addressing, I, II, III y IV
• 1995: Introduction to Law
• 2002: Human Rights and Public Liberty
• 2003: War, Revolution and Peace
• 2003: Forms for Attachment Ways

literature

• Robert Jackson Alexander: Presidents of Central America, Mexico, Cuba, and Hispaniola: Conversations and Correspondence . In: ABC-Clio ebook . Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, Conn. 1995, ISBN 0-275-95278-9 , pp. 241 (English, 266 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

• Biografías y Vidas
• Biography on the website of the law firm Jorge Mera & Villegas

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biografía de ex presidente Salvador Jorge Blanco. In: La verdad informativa. December 27, 2010.
2. ↑ Restos de Jorge Blanco serán velados a partir de las 4:00 PM en la funeraria Blandino. In: Darwin Feliz sin temor. December 26, 2010.
3. ↑ Richard J. Meislin: Man in the News; the Dominicans' Choice. In: New York Times . May 18, 1982.
4. ↑ Jorge Blanco Declared The Dominican Victor. In: New York Times. May 21, 1982.
5. ^ A brisk President. ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The time . May 21, 1982. 
6. ↑ What was on August 16, 1986. In: Chroniknet. August 16, 1986.
7. ↑ Time mirror: first step. In: The time. August 27, 1982.
8. ↑ Laura Lopez: Dominican Republic: A Hungry Mob. In: Time Magazine . May 7, 1984.
9. ^ Ralf Leonhard: Permanent crisis in Santo Domingo. In: Latin America News. January 1998.
10. ↑ Frauke Gewecke: The Caribbean . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 978-3-86527-314-7 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
11. ^ Fugitive Ex-Dominican Chief Apparently Has Heart Attack. In: New York Times. May 9, 1987.

predecessor	Office	successor
Jacobo Majluta Azar	President of the Dominican Republic 1982–1986	Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo