Elections in the Dominican Republic, May 2002

Populism and the Erosion of Horizontal Accountability in Latin America

“…Mejía in the Dominican Republic rose to power in the context of a stable party system and with a comfortable majority of a traditional party – the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) – in both chambers of the Congress. He also managed to uphold popular support until after the mid-term elections in 2002 (Sagás, 2003). While he did not face incentives to change the electoral system, as it already invested his party with control over Congress, he had an interest in reforming the constitution as to enable his immediate re-election (Corrales, 2016).…”

District magnitude and voter turnout a multi-level analysis of self-reported voting in the 32 Dominican Republic districts

“…The turnout in both types of elections differed markedly. In the presidential elections of 1996 and 2000, 78% and 76% of the voters voted, while the congressional and municipal elections held in 1998 and 2002 attracted just 52% and 51% of the voters (Sagas, 1997(Sagas, , 1999(Sagas, , 2001(Sagas, , 2003. Table 1 lists the main characteristics of the Domin ican political system.…”

“…a The information included in Table 1 refers to the situation in 2002, the year in which the DHS survey was held. Source: www.jce.do; Espinal, 1991;Jones, 1995;Sagas, 1997Sagas, , 1999Sagas, , 2001Sagas, , 2003 as in other Latin American democracies, the Dominican party system has been characterized by substantial voter swings from 1978 onwards.12 All three major parties have delivered presidents.13 Though the support for each party varies regionally, only three parties play a role, even in the larger districts where more seats can be won.14 In sum, the party system of the Dominican Republic is characterized by its stable and low effective number of parties.15…”

“…All three parties (PRD, PLD and the PRSC) are highly nationalized, and anything but decentralized. Indeed all three parties mainly rely on national figureheads to do the vote-seeking (Sagas, 2003).…”

“…For instance, in the last Presidential and Congressional election, the m in im um electoral volatility was 13.8 and 8.6% respectively (own calculations based onSagas, 1997Sagas, ,1999Sagas, , 2001Sagas, , 2003.13 The PLD only became an im portant political force starting from 1986 w hen voters started moving. From that m om ent on the party system moved towards a three-party system(Morgan et al, 2008: 5).14 The only fourth party party that managed to capture some seats for a short period of time wasMajluta's PRI between 1990and 1994(Espinal, 1991Hartlyn, 1994).15 After 2002, the PRSC gradually lost electoral support and has now become a m inor party.…”