Presidential election in the Dominican Republic in 2000
The Dominican presidential election in 2000 took place on May 16, 2000. In total, just over 4.5 million Dominicans were asked to cast their votes. Under the 1966 Constitution , the Dominican Republic is a presidential republic. The head of state and chief executive officer (head of government) is the president , who is directly elected for four years .
Seven candidates ran for election. According to surveys, the favorite in the election campaign was the leader of the social democratic Partido Revolucionario Dominicano , Hipólito Mejía , who opposed Joaquín Balaguer (President 1960–1961, 1966–1978 and 1986–1996) from the conservative Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC) and Danilo Medina from the liberal partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) took over. His party friend Leonel Fernández , President from 1996 to 2000, was unable to run again because of the ban on immediate re-election introduced in 1994 after the controversial election of Balaguer. The remaining five candidates were given no chance of being elected.
Hipólito Mejía narrowly missed the absolute majority in the first ballot with 49.87%, which would have been necessary for the election as president. The PLD then tried to agree with the PRSC a new edition of the Frente Patriotico from 1996, with which the two parties had prevented the election of the popular PRD candidate José Francisco Peña Gómez in favor of Leonel Fernández. Balaguer, who had already declared in 1997 that he regretted entering into that alliance with the PLD, and for him coined the famous expression of the Comesolos (for example: who eat everything alone ), declined. The second-placed Medina saw no possibility of winning the election and did not run for a runoff. Mejía was declared president and the senator of the Distrito Nacional , Milagros Ortiz Bosch, a niece of Juan Bosch , the founder of the PRD, became vice-president and the first woman in this office. The PRD thus came back to power after 14 years in the opposition.
The PRD alliance included the Unidad Democrática (UD), the Partido Revolucionario Independiente (PRI), the Partido Quisqueyano Demócrata (PQD), the Partido Nacional de Veteranos Civiles (PNVC), the Partido Demócrata Popular (PDR) and the Alianza Social Demócrata (ASD); to that of the PLD of the Bloque Institucional Socialdemócrata (BIS).
Election result
Final result of the state electoral commission:
| space | candidate | Political party | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hipólito Mejía | Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) | 49.87% |
| 2 | Danilo Medina | Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) | 24.94% |
| 3 | Joaquín Balaguer | Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC) | 24.60% |
| 4th | José González Espinoza | Partido de los Trabajadores Dominicanos (PTD) | 0.19% |
| 5 | Ramón Almánzar | Partido Nueva Alternativa (PNA) | 0.19% |
| 6th | Cesar Estrella Shalá | Movimiento de Unidad e Integración Dominicana (UNIDO) | 0.11% |
| 7th | Agustín Encarnación | Partido Renacentista Nacional (PRN) | 0.10% |
The turnout was 76.1% (in the Dominican Republic there is compulsory voting for voters under 70 years of age ).
Individual evidence
- ^ Melissa Marcelino: Sistema electoral y sistema de partidos en República Dominicana 1978-2008. In: Website of the Observatorio Politico Dominicano. August 15, 2011.
- ↑ Martín Juárez Concepción: El gobierno de Danilo: Un gobierno de Come Solos. In: Las Calientes del Sur. May 14, 2015.
- ^ David Gonzalez: Dominican Wins Presidency As Opponent Shuns Runoff. In: New York Times . May 19, 2000.
- ↑ Elecciones presidenciales 2000. In: Website of the Observatorio Político Dominicano (XLSX; 19 kB).
- ^ República Dominicana. 2000 Elecciones Presidenciales. In: Political Database of the Americas of the Center of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University . September 22, 2005.