To understand the nature of the Danilo Medina government that began on August 16, 2012 and ended in 2020, we must remember how this leader of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) became a leader.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, which coincided with the PLD’s best electoral performance with Juan Bosch as its presidential candidate, but failed to replace Joaquín Balaguer in power, the purple party has begun an informal process. of in-depth interrogation of the programmatic line and its ideological positions alongside the progressive forces of the world.
Danilo, Leonel Fernández and Temístocles Montás, in fact, became the troika that led the PLD to meet the national and international reality, as well as its true nature as a liberal democratic party.
Pragmatism made its way into the PLD leadership and just six years after accusing Balaguer of committing “colossal fraud”, the new PLD came to power with reformist support and made the young Leonel the party’s first president. purple in 23 years of existence.
In the 1996 elections, Balaguer did not support his party’s candidate, Jacinto Peynado, and faced the situation of going to a second round between PLD-Leonel and the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) with José Francisco Peña Gómez as candidate, caudillo the reformer decided to close the “bad road” and support Leonel.
But unlike those who believe that Balaguer considered Peña Gómez the “wrong way”, they claim that his opposition was not to the PRD leader, but to the fact that he knew of the terrible disease he had and that if he winning the election as it was painted, power would return to his former disciple Fernando Álvarez Bogaert, which was unacceptable to Balaguer.
Balaguer’s calculation was millimetric: a little less than two years after the election, Peña Gómez died, and the presidency of the Republic was not Álvarez Bogaert, but Leonel, who guaranteed him another four years of quiet life. To be a candidate in 2000 and allowed him to see Bosch die.
After a period of four years 1996-2000, Leonel leaves the government, but the PLD loses the election with Danilo as a presidential candidate, and the PRD now returns with Hipólito Mejía as president.
For the 2004 elections, in which Hipólito called for re-election, there was a consensus in the PLD that the ideal candidate is Leonel and he eliminated the PRD. Hipólito’s defeat was a national claim and the slogan What happiness, Hipólito leaves! it has fully materialized.
Although Hipólito amended the Constitution in 2002 to reinstate consecutive re-election, the PLD continued to be, in principle, an anti-re-election party.
After the second half of the four-year period 2004-2008, Danilo left the Presidency Ministry confident that he would be the PLD candidate for the 2008 elections, but Leonel’s forces came out to meet him and defeated him.
Leonel said he was not loyal to his partner to “see” if the Constitution allowed him to be re-elected, while after the defeat, Danilo said that “the state prevailed” and that he already knew that re-election could be sought from the PLD. . The fight between Danilo and Leonel has begun.
Leonel’s re-election took place in 2008 against the PRD which nominated Miguel Vargas Maldonado, Danilo was left out of the government and, although Leonel’s followers again insisted that he could run in 2012, he did not do so and in finally, he supported Danilo, he won for the first time in front of Hipólito, who in fact was not supported by Vargas Maldonado.
Danilo in government
Aspiring for the presidency, Danilo had to wait more than 12 years, but when he arrived he left his mark and put a special stamp on the government.
In the best PLD style, Danilo kept important personalities in the cabinet, but placed his most trusted staff at the head of key ministries.
The model of “development” that Danilo followed was the continuity of macroeconomic policies coming from the Leonel government, but he introduced some emphasis on certain sectors.
Encourage tourism in order to reach up to ten million visitors a year, promoting employment, increasing free zones, promoting the construction of road solutions, among others.
The news was an unprecedented incentive for the small agricultural producer through the “Surprise Visits” program, which provided very good financing, infrastructure, technical support and marketing facilities, which together with the greenhouses that the Hipólito government has already introduced, to rural Dominicans in terms of export and supply of demand from the tourism sector and the internal market.
In rural areas, Danilo’s government also insisted on afforestation, but never had an environment minister enforce the law, so logging and the collapse of rivers and beaches did not stop.
Danilo was the one who from day one respected and delivered 4% of GDP to education, building tens of thousands of classrooms, thousands of new schools, improving the working conditions of teachers, implementing the extended school day with food for students.
His government came out in front of the government contract with the mining company Barrick Pueblo Viejo and, after months of negotiations, managed to substantially improve the benefits for the state.
Danilo developed one of the most ambitious projects for the remodeling of hospitals and the construction of first-class centers, but for reasons unknown to me, he could not complete them and some embarrassing scandals broke out.
Two blunders
Danilo designed to build the Cibao-Sur highway and the Punta Catalina thermal power plant with coal generation. I radically opposed the two o’clock for environmental reasons. Despite widespread support from the Catholic clergy, businessmen and the entire city of San Juan, Danilo eventually gave up building the road that would affect five national parks vital to the island’s biological balance.
But he built Punta Catalina and, as I warned in 2013 in several ways, it would be a bitter memory for him and a drain on the treasury. The mud is painted.
Danilo’s style
He made the Presidency a model of simplicity. In the first days of his rule, he stopped in La Laguna de Nisibón, asked permission to enter the bathroom of the Police barracks and left everyone speechless. He went with six assistants in two jeepetas, very far from the military apparatus that was deployed in the governments of Hipólito and Leonel.
During the surprise visits, the army was never seen escorting its vehicles or guarding its route and occupying a plastic chair at meetings as one of those present.
He was punctual in his public commitments and combined formality with informality.
Conflicts over his presidential candidacy in the PLD and the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic have reduced the brilliance of his work at the end of his last term.
On Friday, I will give the profile of Luis Abinader’s government.