Joaquin Balaguer was one of the most enduring political leaders in the Dominican Republic for most of the twentieth century. As a central figure in the Caribbean, his involvement in Dominican politics defined a significant period of the island's contemporary political history.
Background
Balaguer was born on September 1, 1907, in Navarrete, a farming town in the Dominican Republic, the only boy in a family that included six sisters. His father, Joaquin Balaguer Lespier, was an agricultural merchant, originally from Puerto Rico, and his mother was Carmen Celia Ricardo.
Education
Balaguer completed elementary school in his hometown and went to high school in the neighboring town of Santiago de los Caballeros. From there, he moved on to the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, where he obtained a law degree in 1929. He was awarded a doctorate in law and political science from the University of Paris in 1932.
Career
During his early years in public life, Balaguer was a career diplomat with Gen-eral Rafael Leonidas Trujillo's Foreign Service. He obtained his first assignment to Spain in 1932, and eventually held ambassadorial positions in Colombia, Ec-uador, and Mexico. He also worked as a university professor. Balaguer gained local government experience by working as a lawyer for the agrarian courts, as undersecretary of public education and fine arts, and an undersecretary of state for foreign relations. He first entered national politics when he was appointed secretary to the presidency in 1956 during the regime of General Trujillo. In 1957, he was elected vice president as the running mate of Hector Trujillo (brother to General Trujillo). When Hector Trujillo resigned in 1960 amidst political controversy, Balaguer became president. He was president when General Trujillo was assassinated in 1961.
During the first term of his presidency, Balaguer moved to dismantle the exist-ing dictatorship by allowing once-exiled political dissidents to return to the island. But his initiatives were difficult to implement as the vestiges of Trujillo's dictatorial regime remained a formidable force on the island, particularly in the military.
After a military coup in 1962, Balaguer left the Dominican Republic and sought asylum in New York. He spent four years in political exile in New York, returning to the Dominican Republic in 1966 at the end of the civil war. He sought the presidency again, this time on the Reform Party ticket, and was elected to the position in 1966. He was reelected in 1970 and 1974. Balaguer's leadership during this period has been characterized as an economic dictatorship marked by manipulation of the central bank and centralization of the economic resources into the office of the president (Moya Pons 1998). After a brief retirement in the late 1970s and 1980s, he was elected president again in 1986 and served until 1996.
Even as a disabled elder statesman who has suffered from longtime blindness, Balaguer still wielded substantial amount of political power and influence in the Dominican Republic; as recently as the 2000 elections, he broadcasted speeches from his bed. His role during the hours before and after the assassination of Trujillo has been reexamined in the publication of La fiesta del chivo (The Goat's Feast), a fictionalized account of the assassination of Trujillo by the noted Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (2000).
Balaguer died on July 14, 2002, at the age of 94. His passing constituted the end of a unique period in the Dominican Republic's history. Thousands of people visited his home to pay their respect to the man who played a central role in their lives for over 50 years. He asked to be given a "traditional" Dominican wake, which entailed exhibiting his fully dressed body resting on his deathbed. Despite Balaguer's controversial legacy and the many historic and political interpretations of his work, there is general agreement that he helped the poor of his island.
Politics
Balaguer had a long tenure in Dominican politics. Although his regime was associated with some levels of repression and violence, Balaguer tried to distance himself from the bloody deeds that characterized the Trujillo years and acknowledged that there may have been "excesses" during his own tenure as president (Treaster 1986). Many Dominicans have labeled Balaguer as a tyrant. During his term in office, he did not hesitate to use political repression and some allege murder to keep political control of the island. Many have attributed the phrase "Los muertos no hablan" (Dead people do not talk) to him. However, many have also noted that he kept the poor on his island happy to maintain control of the government and to solidify his presidency. Through the years, he obtained support from diverse groups that included conservative followers in the countryside, farmers, business and industrial leaders, and poor laborers.
Balaguer was able to stay in power by building a large system of political cronyism that handed out low-paying government jobs and spent money freely in huge public works such as the national monument to Christopher Columbus and a large cross-shaped lighthouse built to commemorate the 500 years of Spanish colonization of the Dominican Republic. While president, he maintained personal control and discretionary authority over more than 50 percent of the national budget. He has been criticized for allowing his political cronies to benefit from the funds of the national treasury, but he saw this as an effective means of consolidating political power. One journalist described the power behind his ability to govern by labeling him "a collector of favors and a master of intrigue and manipulation who never makes his intentions clear or agrees to a binding commit-ment, leaving his opponents off balance and guessing what he will do next".