Hipólito Mejía

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Hipólito Mejía (2003)

Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez [ rafaˈɛl iˈpoːlito meˈxiːa doˈmiŋges ] (born February 22, 1941 in Santiago de los Caballeros , Dominican Republic ) is an agronomist and Dominican politician (until mid-2014 Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), then Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRM)) Moderno (PRM) . He was President of the Dominican Republic from 2000 to 2004 .

biography

Hipólito Mejía grew up in Gurabo in the province of Santiago , where his parents Hipólito de Jesús "Polín" Mejía Díaz and María Josefa "Marina" Domínguez Viñals came from. The family has Catalan roots.

He studied agricultural science at the Instituto Politécnico Loyola in San Cristóbal and graduated in 1962 as an agricultural engineer . Two years later he continued his studies in agriculture at North Carolina State University in the United States , where he became familiar with process flows in the tobacco industry .

In 1965, at the age of 24, he was appointed director of the National Tobacco Institute with the rank of Undersecretary of State.

Between 1967 and 1978 he worked in the private sector, first for the US company Rohm and Haas and then for Industrias Linda. In 1971 he was appointed President of the Asociación Nacional de Profesionales Agrícolas (ANPA). Mejía is also a successful entrepreneur in the agri-food industry; he is active in the distribution of high quality genetic seeds, agrochemicals and technologies for agriculture.

He is married to Rosa Gómez Arias, with whom he has four children: Carolina, Lissa, Felipe and Ramón Hipólito. The couple was active in the Movimiento Familiar Cristiano, a secular movement to promote the values ​​of the Catholic family in Dominican society.

Start of political career

In 1978 he became Minister of Agriculture in the Antonio Guzmán Fernández government . During his tenure, he introduced new laws for agriculture and started programs to develop and technologize them. He also had to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane David and the African swine fever . He helped organize tobacco growing cooperatives, worked on improving domestic tobacco varieties, and introduced light-colored tobacco into industrial cigarette production.

In 1982 Mejía returned to the private sector, became vice-president of the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) and ran for the first time as senator for his home province of Santiago, but was not elected. In the 1990 presidential election he was a candidate for the vice presidency under José Francisco Peña Gómez . The controversial election was lost by the PRD, weakened by a split of the Partido Revolucionario Independiente under Jacobo Majluta Azar , and with 23% came third behind the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC) from Joaquín Balaguer (35%) and the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD ) by Juan Bosch (33.8%).

President of the Dominican Republic

In 1999, Mejía won the internal party election for nomination for the 2000 presidential election with 74.3%, ahead of Fello Suberví (13.8%), Milagros Ortiz (5.8%), Hatuey De Camps (4.8%) and José Rafael Abinader (1.3%). Mejía reached in the election on May 16, 2000 49.87% of the vote against 24.9% of the candidate of the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD), Danilo Medina . For the first time the new rule “50 + 1” would have applied, which states that 50% of the votes plus one are required to win the first ballot. Medina, however, did without a second ballot because he did not receive unreserved support from third-placed Joaquín Balaguer and therefore saw no possibility of winning the election. Mejía was declared President and began his four-year term on August 16, 2000.

During Mejía's term of office, the Dominican Republic experienced one of the worst economic crises in the country's history, fueled by a failed economic policy by the Mejía government. During his tenure, the country's second-largest private bank, the Baninter, collapsed. The collapse of the bank was made public through a corruption scandal in which the government was involved. One consequence of this crisis was a massive devaluation of the Dominican peso and galloping inflation of up to 42%. Mejía's initially very high approval ratings dropped dramatically as a result.

Hipólito Mejía was accused of corruption several times , but no trial was ever opened against him.

Unsuccessful candidacies for re-election

In 2004 Mejía ran again for the presidential election. This was made possible by the ruling PRD lifting the ban on immediate re-election in 2003 in the face of Mejías initially high approval rates in the hope of re-election. However, Mejía lost the election to Leonel Fernández Reyna from the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD).

In the 2008 presidential election , the President of the PRD, Miguel Vargas Maldonado, ran for election, but also lost to incumbent President Leonel Fernández.

Mejía ran again in the 2012 presidential election. The short slogan of his campaign was “Llegó Papá” (“Papa has arrived”). Mejía achieved a better result than 2004, but lost the election again against the candidate of the PLD, this time Danilo Medina.

Then a conflict broke out in the PRD over the party leadership between Mejía and Vargas. The two-year dispute ended in mid-2014 with Mejiás and other members being expelled from the party and his supporters splitting off. To this end, the electoral platform Alianza Social Dominicana (before 1994 Alianza Social Demócrata), which is related to the family of Luis Abinader , who was Mejía's vice-presidential candidate in 2012, was renamed Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM). The PRM sees itself in the tradition of the legendary charismatic José Francisco Peña Gómez , who died in 1998 .

For the 2016 presidential election , Mejía was again looking for nomination as a presidential candidate, this time from the PRM. In the internal party dispute, however, he lost to Luis Abinader. The PLD with incumbent President Danilo Medina clearly won the election with 61.79% to 34.96%. The PRD had joined the alliance of the former opponent Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) and contributed 5.85% to their victory. Their own leader, Miguel Vargas, had no chance of being elected.

personality

Mejía represents the country man, albeit with an academic level. His folk manner is a striking contrast to the previous Dominican heads of state. He defines himself as a person who says straightforwardly what he thinks. This is welcomed by some, while others find it unsuitable for a president.

Hipólito Mejía gained worldwide acquaintance through frequent verbal failures. During his presidency he often had differences with Dominican journalists about his language. For example, he called a dark-skinned cameraman a “little monkey” after an interview. In an interview with journalist Jorge Ramos in November 2003, he defended himself by saying that people did not understand his way of expressing themselves clearly without mincing words. Ramos confronted him with statements he had made about political opponents and journalists: "You say that your opponents are droolers and dinosaurs and the Taliban journalists." Mejía replied, "Who drools must be called droolers, I think that's grammatical the word that fits in this case. "

Mejía popularized in his 2004 election campaign among many other expressions such as El perro de Mamá Belica (The dog of Mamá Belica) , Lo voy agarra por el pichirrí (I'll grab him by the Pichirrí) and Pinocho que es un niño de verdad (Pinocchio is a real boy) .

His followers call him "Papá". In his last political campaigns, the exclamation “Llegó Papá!” Was heard frequently.

Honors

Honorary doctorates

Mejía has received honorary doctorates from the following universities:

Awards

  • Order of Juan Mora Fernández in the Range of Gran Cruz Placa de Oro, Costa Rica
  • Ribbon of the Order of Isabel la Católica, Spain
  • Ribbon of the Order del Libertador, Venezuela
  • Ribbon of the Order al Mérito de Chile, Chile
  • Order of Francisco Morazán (in the rank of the Great Cross on gold plaque), Honduras
  • Large ribbon of the Order of the Brilliant Jade, China
  • Medal of the Republic of Uruguay in the rank of Great Ribbon, Uruguay
  • Ribbon with great cross of the Order del Libertador San Martín, Argentina
  • Order of General José Dolores Estrada. Batalla de San Jacinto in the Grade of Band, Nicaragua
  • Order of Rubén Darío in the Grade of the Great Cross, Nicaragua
  • Band Olímpico Panamericano, Nicaragua
  • Orden Nacional al Mérito in the grade of the Great Volume, Ecuador
  • Award from the Congreso Nacional del Ecuador, Ecuador
  • Orden Nacional de San Lorenzo Gran Cruz, Ecuador
  • Large ribbon of the Order de Mohamadí, Morocco
  • Great Ribbon of the Great Order Yaroslaw El Sabio, Ukraine
  • Order of Francisco Morazán, Central American Parliament
  • Order of the Quetzal in the Grade of Great Ribbon, Guatemala
  • Great Medal Extraordinaria, Puerto Rico

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hipólito fue el niño mimado de 'Belica'. ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2012 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: El Caribe. March 17, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.elcaribe.com.do
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Hipólito Mejía Domínguez. In: Website of the Centro de estudios y documentación internacionales de Barcelona. February 4, 2010.
  3. ↑ a b c Ing.Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez. ( Memento of the original from May 26, 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: Website of the Pontifical Catholic University “Mater et Magistra” . March 8, 2007.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / opac.pucmm.edu.do
  4. ^ Rosario Espinal: Crónica del proceso democrático dominicano: avances, retrocesos y riesgos. In: El Dominicano. November 22, 2015 (archived on Cielo naranja (PDF; 77 kB)).
  5. ↑ Partidos políticos y elecciones primarias: Construyendo la democracia interna. In: Ciencia y Sociedad. No. 3 Vol. 29, July / September, ISSN 0378-7680, pp. 405-425 (PDF; 188 kB).
  6. ↑ Declaran a Hipolito Mejia Presidente electo de República Dominicana. In: Emol. May 18, 2000.
  7. ^ Fausto Rosario: No vale la pena ese debate ( Memento of June 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). In: Participación Ciudadana . April 27, 2002.
  8. ↑ Norma Domínguez: Roberto Rodríguez Marchena: En Santo Domingo estamos asistiendo a un proceso de africanización. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 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: America Economica. February 20, 2004. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.americaeconomica.com
  9. ↑ Dominican Republic: Government candidate wins. In: The press . May 21, 2012.
  10. ↑ Parece llega división definitiva al PRD. In: El Nacional. June 23, 2014.
  11. ^ Juan Eduardo Thomas: PRM contra su doble pasado. In: Listín Diario. 4th May 2016.
  12. ↑ Luis Abinader le Gano ayer la convención del PRM a Hipolito Mejia. In: Diario Libre. April 27, 2015.
  13. ^ Dominican Republic: Danilo Medina and Miguel Vargas sign political alliance. In: DomRepTotal. September 8, 2015.
  14. ↑ a b Jorge Ramos: Las malas palabras de Hipólito. In: Website of Jorge Ramos. November 10, 2003.
  15. ↑ Lauterio Vargas, Carlos O. Pérez: Las mil posiciones de Hipolito Mejia ( Memento of 22 April 2012 at the Internet Archive ). In: Ahora.com.co. 21st January to 3rd February 2004: Sus frases son conocidas a nivel popular como "Hipolitadas" .
  16. ↑ Hipolitismo, hipolitadas, hipolitocracia. In: Hoy. October 1, 2007.
  17. ↑ Hipólito se lanza a ritmo de "llegó Papá". In: Diario Libre. June 7, 2010.

Web links

Commons : Hipólito Mejía  - collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Leonel Fernández President of the Dominican Republic
2000 - 2004 		Leonel Fernández
personal data
SURNAME Mejía, Hipólito
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mejía Domínguez, Rafael Hipólito (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dominican politician, President of the Dominican Republic
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Gurabo , Dominican Republic