Political Parties of the Dominican Republic
Political party system and political parties were not well established and before 1960s politics in the Dominican Republic had a weak stand. As a matter of fact, all the parties were powerless, weakly organized, had unpracticed political authority, were neither exceptionally programmatic nor ideological and were following personal ideas as opposed to concrete programs. Gradually in the mid-1960s, two main movements or political parties had taken over Dominican politics. These were the Reformist Party (Partido Reformista)—PR and the PRD. Both these gatherings had experienced a few redesigns.
PRD
The PRD had been established in 1939 by outcasts from the Trujillo autocracy. It worked as a banished association for approximately 22 years, and then in 1961 it returned back to the Dominican Republic after Trujillo’s death. One of the democratic political party in the late 1980s was considered to be PRD. It was determined to help workers and peasants, thereby more inclined towards social justice. In addition to that, the PRD had a place with the Socialist International despite being nationalistic. PRD political party upheld both economic and political democracy. All the citizens considered it as a strongly reformist party, since PRD used only democratic methods to carry out any changes in the country.
The PRD had always been well organized party in Dominic Republic, however gradually it was torn due to ideological and personal differences. These differences in the party became more prominent in 1989. Former president of the political group, Jorge was held for corruption, and due to many differences the party’s popularity greatly declined. Later on, the party divided further on.
PR
The other party was the PR which was led by the President Balaguer. PR did not have clear cut strategies and more conservative when compared to PRD. It comprised of job seekers, officeholders, and persons faithful to Balaguer. The PR worked more as a support system than as a gathering with an identifiable philosophy. Balaguer utilized this political machine to win most of the elections conducted in 1970, 1974 and 1966. He sought a union between the Revolutionary Social Christian Party (Partido Revolucionario Social Cristiano–PRSC) and PR in 1985.
Conclusion
Here at The Dominican Republic, elections are conducted once in every four years. In additions to that, this country has multi-party political framework. In 1996, two rounds of presidential elections took place and nearly 81% of qualified Dominican voters went to the polls. Actually in 1994, the two main parties were PRD which was linked with the Socialist International and the candidate was Jose Francisco Pena Gomez. The other party was PRSC connected to the International Christian Democratic political development led by President Joaquín Balaguer.