santo domingo/Dominican President Luis Abinader will once again assume the position of head of state of the Dominican Republic for the next four years, after on Sunday he achieved a major electoral victory in the first round, receiving nearly 60% of the votes. According to the Central Electoral Council, with just over 36.6% of the votes counted, Abi Nader, of the Modern Revolutionary Party (Progressive and Liberal), received 58.24% of support.
This percentage represents more than double that of the second highest ranked, three-time Dominican President Leonel Fernandez (1996-2000, 2004-2008 and 2008-2012), who together with the opposition Forza del Pueblo (Progressive) received 27.87% of the vote. Votes.
Third place went to the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and former Mayor of Santiago (the country’s second city), Abel Martinez, from the Progressive Dominican Liberation Party, who received 10.73% of the votes.
Abi Nader said he wanted to “continue deepening change” because he emphasized that “the best is yet to come in the Dominican Republic.”
Leonel Fernandez and Abel Martinez acknowledged Abinader’s victory in their phone calls, and in his speech after his victory was confirmed, he stressed that “the Dominican Republic has changed and will change forever.”
Abi Nader also said he wanted to “continue deepening change” because he emphasized that “the best is yet to come in the Dominican Republic.”
To make that promising future a reality, he has only four years to go, because this – as he promised – will be his last term and he will not run for the presidency of the republic again, thus respecting the two-term limit. stipulated in the current constitution.
This is a big year for the Revolutionary Movement Party, as the victory of Abinader and his deputy Raquel Peña in the presidential elections is compounded by the landslide victory in the legislative elections on Sunday, from which this progressive liberal formation and its 20 allied parties leave. This relates to the majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives, in addition to the great victory he achieved in the municipal elections last February.
In this way, a day was marked by calm, but there was no shortage of complaints from the opposition and civil movements about some irregularities in the elections, especially the presence of pre-marked ballot papers, the purchase of identity cards, or proselytizing in or around the polling stations.
According to Citizen Participation (the Dominican branch of Transparency International), these fraudulent practices have decreased compared to previous elections.
The Organization of American States’ observation mission for these elections, headed by former Chilean President Eduardo Frei, highlighted the “great civic responsibility of voters throughout the country” and the high turnout at the ballot boxes.
During the ten hours that voting took, Dominicans went, without crowds but continuously, to the slightly more than 16,700 polling stations in Dominican territory, which were added to the 1,566 abroad, in 46 locations in 35 countries.
Without major incidents, in contrast to last year’s sometimes bloody campaigns and elections, the voting process passed fairly calmly.
Without major incidents, in contrast to last year’s sometimes bloody campaigns and elections, the voting process passed fairly calmly.
This Sunday, just over 8.1 million Dominican citizens were called to the polls, including – for the first time – preventive prisoners.
One of the surprise votes was conducted by Roque Espaillat Mosque, Presidential candidate of the nationalist Democratic Party of Hope led by Ramfis Trujillo, grandson of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (1930-1961).
Espaillat is the only one of the other six presidential candidates – with the exception of Abinader, Fernández and Martínez – who managed to exceed 1% of the vote, a percentage higher than that obtained by Miguel Vargas, of the historical and symbolic Dominican Revolutionary Party. (Party of the Democratic Revolution, Social Democratic Party), founded in 1939 and received only 0.50% of the vote.
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