Latinnews Archive
Latin American Weekly Report - 23 May 1986
Balaguer beats ruling PRD;NARROW VICTORY MAY LEAD TO COALITION GOVERNMENT
Former President Joaquin Balaguer, 78, won the 16 May presidential election, but a slow vote count and a narrow advantage over his main rival blocked a prompt recognition of his victory. With more than 90% of the votes counted, Balaguer had won almost 41%, against 39% received by the PRD candidate Jacobo Majluta. If the closeness of the result is reflected in the distribution of parliamentary seats, Balaguer will find it impossible to govern without some form of coalition.
The vote count became exceptionally slow on 17 May, as results began to indicate an opposition victory, bringing accusations of manipulation against the government of President Salvador Jorge Blanco. Counting was delayed by thousands of votes cast by electors whose voting credentials were questioned by polling station officials or by party representatives: those votes were specially witnessed and sealed.
Most of the questioned credentials belonged to electors who were added to the rolls after a registration deadline extension had been granted at the request of the PRD. Although a large proportion of these votes can be expected to favour the PRD, electoral officials said that it would be virtually impossible for Majluta to overtake Balaguer.
By the time more than 90% of the votes had been counted, Balaguer and his Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC) had received 799,968 votes against 764,509 for the PRD. This would be Balaguer's fourth term in office; he occupied the presidency for three successive terms from 1966 to 1978. Balaguer received support from the small farmers who benefited from his land reforms and from the middle classes who cashed in on his extensive public works projects.
It is unlikely that a Balaguer administration can fulfil expectations for a return of prosperity. There was little difference between the programmes of the two main candidates: both favoured reaching an understanding with the IMF, resorting to foreign investment and the need for budgetary discipline and harsh economic measures to face the crisis in this sugar-based economy (RC-86-04). Both are regarded to be right of centre and US sources indicated that Washington would be pleased to see either of them in the presidency, in spite of Balaguer's frailty and almost total blindness.
Similarities between Balaguer and Majluta may come handy if the PRSC is not able to secure an absolute majority in parliament, where all 30 Senate seats and 120 seats in the lower house were up for election. Although a pact between the PRSC and the PRD -- a prominent member of the Socialist International -- is unlikely, Majluta may feel inclined to take his faction, La Estructura, into an understanding with a PRSC administration. That could precipitate the often-threatened split of the PRD between the party's social democratic majority under the leadership of Jose Francisco Pena Gomez and La Estructura.
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