Jacobo Majluta Azar

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Jacobo Majluta Azar (approx. 1995)

Jacobo Majluta Azar (born October 9, 1934 in Santo Domingo , Dominican Republic , † March 2, 1996 in Tampa , Florida ) was a politician (Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), Partido Revolucionario Independiente (PRI)) in the Dominican Republic. He was elected Vice President in 1978 and was President of the Dominican Republic for 42 days as the successor to Antonio Guzmán, who died by suicide , in 1982 . From 1982 to 1984 he was President of the Senate ( Upper House ) and the United Parliament (Congress) and was still a member of parliament until 1986. In the 1990 presidential election he was defeated as a candidate for the PRI he founded.

biography

Majluta was born into a merchant family with Lebanese roots. His father of the same name was Dominican of Lebanese origin, his mother Elena Azar was Lebanese. Majluta studied finance at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo and then worked as chief financial officer in the banking and government sectors.

He was married to Ana Elisa Villanueva and had a daughter with her, Consuelo Elena Majluta Villanueva.

Political career

Majluta joined the PRD in 1961 after the assassination of the dictator Rafael Trujillo , where he rose quickly and became the youngest minister in Juan Bosch's short-lived government in 1963 . After this was overthrown by a military coup, he went into exile. Upon his return, he rebuilt his political career and was elected vice-president in the 1978 presidential election.

Once in office, he quickly lost support from the more radical social democratic wing of the PRD. As head of CORDE (Corporación de Empresas Estatales), one of the large state-owned companies, he was suspected of corruption, but this could never be proven. In any case, his real concern throughout his career has always been to fend off attacks by other leaders or backers in the PRD.

He also failed to achieve his goal of being nominated as the official candidate of the PRD for the 1982 presidential election; he lost the internal party election against Salvador Jorge Blanco . This then won the presidential election on May 16, 1982. After Guzmán's suicide on July 4, 1982, Majluta was constitutionally elected as Vice-President for the short remaining term of Guzmán's president of the Dominican Republic, but immediately declared that the office was elected as planned on August 16, 1982 Salvador Jorge Blanco to hand over. During his brief tenure, he reduced the prices of staple foods in order to increase his popularity. With the installation of Jorge Blanca as President, Majluta became a member of the Senate and its President as well as President of the Congress (united Parliament, Chamber of Deputies and Senate). He used his new position to block the political program of his party rivals - also with the help of the opposition.

After various scandals and after Los Blancos government had gradually led the country towards national bankruptcy, Majluta demanded again in 1986 the nomination as the official presidential candidate of the PRD. This time, however, the charismatic José Francisco Peña Gómez was his rival, and an open conflict broke out between the two camps. After several supporters of the two rivals were killed in shootings, Majluta was finally nominated as an official candidate for the 1986 presidential election. Despite his undisputed political abilities, he was narrowly defeated by his opponent Joaquín Balaguer from the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC), the great old man of Dominican politics, who was re-elected president at the age of 80 after 1960–1961 and 1966–1978. The brutal internal struggle had alienated a large part of the PRD supporters from their party, and many previously loyal PRD voters did not vote for their own candidate.

Majluta did not want to accept his defeat, announced his victory immediately after the election and demanded that it be repeated. Finally, representatives of the military and the church, the real rulers in the country, forced him to acknowledge the defeat. In 1987, when Peña Gomez consolidated his influence in the party, Majluta was expelled from the party, but a court ruled it illegal. In 1989 he left the party himself and founded the Partido Revolucionario Independiente (PRI), whose main task was to support Majluta's aspiration for the office of president. However, the PRI never achieved broader popular support. In the 1990 presidential election, however, he prevented Peña Gomez 'being elected with 7% of the vote.

Support Peña Gomez '

Surprisingly, Majluta sought a rapprochement with his eternal rival Peña Gomez in the weeks before his death and even supported his candidacy in the 1996 presidential election. This was seen by many as the last, but now atypical, gesture of an otherwise stubborn fighter who always overrode personal power Party democracy.

Honors

In 1997 in Santo Domingo, in Majluta's honor, the extension of Avenida Charles de Gaulle from Carretera Mella to Avenida República de Colombia was renamed Avenida Jacobo Majluta.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e James Ferguson: Obituary: Jacobo Majluta. In: The Independent . March 5, 1996.
  2. ↑ Dominican Leader Dies of a Gunshot; Suicide Is Reported. In: The New York Times . 5th July 1982.

Web links

predecessor Office successor
Antonio Guzmán Fernández President of the Dominican Republic
1982 		Salvador Jorge Blanco
personal data
SURNAME Majluta Azar, Jacobo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Majluta, Jacobo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dominican politician, became President of the Dominican Republic as Vice President on the death of his predecessor
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Santo Domingo , Dominican Republic
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1996
Place of death Tampa , Florida