Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader is demanding that voters hold him accountable for his crackdown on immigration from neighboring Haiti, his efforts to combat corruption and his stewardship of one of Latin America's best-performing economies. He welcomed it and was aiming for victory in his re-election on Sunday.
Abinader, a former tourism industry executive, received 59% of the vote, compared to his closest rival, three-time president Leonel Fernández, who received 27%, and state mayor Abel Martinez, who received 11% and 21.5%. . Of the votes counted, according to Dominican Republic election officials.
Mr. Fernández and Mr. Martinez called Mr. Abinader on Sunday night to concede and offer their congratulations, even though the full official results were not yet available and were expected to be known within days. expressed. In his victory speech, Abinader thanked his rivals and those who voted for him.
“I accept the trust placed in me,” Abinader said. “I won't let you down.”
This election showed how political leaders can exploit fears about immigration to their own advantage.
The Dominican Republic has deported tens of thousands of Haitians this year to escape gang violence, despite calls from the United Nations to stop. Abinader has gone even further by seeking to build a border wall between the two countries, which share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
“He's made it clear who is in charge on this issue,” said Robert Luna, a Santo Domingo voter who works in marketing, of Mr. Abinader's hardline immigration policies. “He's fighting for what the fathers of the nation wanted.”
Abinader's likely first-round victory means the Dominican Republic, one of Latin America's fastest-growing economies, is one of the largest in the region, where many leaders came to power at the same time as Abinader. It showed how the country is differentiated from other countries. It is plagued by dismal approval ratings.
“This is by no means a 'transformational' election, like many other recent elections in Latin America,” said Michael Shifter, senior fellow at the Washington-based research organization Inter-American Dialogue. Ta.
Much of Abinader's support comes from his anti-graft work. He won his first term in 2020 pledging to root out corruption that has long been ingrained in the political culture of the Dominican Republic, a country of 11.2 million people.
Former Supreme Court Justice Miriam Gelman was appointed as Attorney General. She oversaw an investigation that ensnared senior officials from the previous government, including the former attorney general and former finance minister.
The investigation has largely focused on Mr Abinader's opponents, prompting criticism that his own government has been given impunity. But other developments, such as the passage of the Asset Forfeiture Act in 2022, offer hope for lasting change. Confiscation law is considered an important and pioneering tool for disrupting and dismantling criminal enterprises and stripping them of illegally acquired property.
Rosario Espinal, a political analyst in the Dominican Republic, said Abinader could have been reelected just by focusing on fighting corruption, as he did in 2020, but “he didn't get it by the margin he wanted.'' ” he said.
Instead, Espinal said Abinader embraced the xenophobic immigration policies traditionally promoted by Dominican far-right groups. “He needed to find a new topic that would resonate,” she said. “He discovered it in migration.”
Exploiting anti-Haitian sentiment is nothing new in the Dominican Republic.
Rafael Trujillo, the xenophobic dictator who ruled the country from 1930 to 1961, institutionalized a campaign to portray Haitians as racially inferior, and in 1937, thousands of Haitians and He ordered the massacre of Dominicans.
Almost every other country in the Americas recognizes citizenship by birthright. However, a 2010 constitutional amendment and a 2013 court ruling excluded Dominican-born children of illegal immigrants from citizenship.
In practice, this means that about 130,000 descendants of Haitian immigrants live in the Dominican Republic without citizenship, although they were born there, according to human rights groups.
As Haiti descends into turmoil following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, Abinader built on anti-immigrant measures already enshrined in Dominican Republic law.
He suspended visas for Haitians in 2023 and then closed the border with Haiti for nearly a month over a dispute over the construction of a canal in Haiti that uses water from a river shared between the two countries.
“He has to take a tough stance,” said Sandra Ventura, 55, a businesswoman from Tamayo in the south of the country, regarding Abinader's immigration policies.
Immigration authorities in the Dominican Republic have gone far, launching a campaign to detain and deport pregnant or recently given birth Haitian women, some accused of ransacking Haitian homes.
Pablo Mera, academic director of the Pedro Francisco Bono Institute, a university in the Dominican Republic, called Abinader's Haiti policies, particularly his treatment of pregnant Haitian women, a “public and international disgrace.”
“What happens is that it gets votes,” Merah added. “Candidates are competing to see who is the most anti-Haitian.”
Ahead of the election, a majority of voters in the Dominican Republic said the turmoil in Haiti is affecting how they vote. And Mr. Abinader clearly benefited from these concerns, with nearly 90% of voters expressing support for his border wall.
Much of the large Dominican diaspora was also allowed to vote in the election, with over 600,000 voters residing in the United States and over 100,000 residing in Spain.
Abinader defended his immigration policy, saying it was no different from what countries such as Jamaica, the Bahamas, the United States and Canada have used to restrict the entry of Haitians fleeing the crisis.
“We must do whatever it takes to keep our people safe,” Abinader told the BBC in a recent interview. “We're just enforcing the law.”
Abinader's office did not respond to requests for comment.
Still, some voters were not satisfied with the incumbent. Tirso Lorenzo Piña, a Santo Domingo doorman and evangelical Christian, said he was dissatisfied with Abinader's support at the United Nations, which admitted Palestine into membership.
“Everyone has their own ideology, concepts and way of thinking,” Piña said. “But I don't like him.”
Still, Abinader benefited from the Dominican Republic's divided opposition and broad consensus in favor of investor-friendly policies that foster economic growth. He said his response to the COVID-19 pandemic has also helped, with the relatively quick distribution of vaccines allowing Dominica's tourism industry to recover while some other countries have required visitors to quarantine. Ta.
Tourism is a mainstay of the economy, accounting for approximately 16 percent of gross domestic product. The World Bank expects the Dominican Republic's economic growth rate to be 5.1% this year.
The country's economy has expanded three times faster than the Latin American average over the past two decades, but Abinader has faced criticism for persistent inequality. He responded by expanding a popular cash transfer program for the country's poorest residents.
