After Trujillo

After Trujillo

After Trujillo’s death, the Dominican Republic became a boiling pot of political groups and interests that made a space for themselves on the national scene. Some of the more visible groups were the Unión Cívica Nacional (UCN), headed by Doctor Viriato Fiallo; the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), created and directed by Professor Juan Bosch together with other political exiles; the Vanguardia Revolucionaria Dominicana (VRD), led by one of the participants of the Luperón expedition, Horacio Julio Ornes; and the Movimiento Revolucionario 14 de Junio (MR-14J), a leftist organization directed by Manuel Tavares Justo.

Three significant tendencies tinged the actions of the different political forces. One attempted to maintain the principal points of the Trujillo power scheme; another sought to create a party democracy as in the majority of Latin American countries and a third wanted to follow in the steps of the Cuban revolution.

Council of the State. Joaquín Balaguer, a prominent figure during the Trujillo regime, had arranged to take the presidency upon the death of the dictator. However, pressure from the popular sectors resulted in the establishment of a Council of the State on January 1, 1962. Balaguer managed to chair the Council, but he was replaced by Rafael F. Bonelly after a failed coup attempt.

This transition government occupied itself with organizing the first free elections in more than thirty years.

The constitutional government of Juan Bosch. In the elections held on December 20, 1962, Professor Juan Bosch won by an overwhelming majority and assumed the presidency on February 27, 1963. His regime of public liberties and his promotion of a markedly liberal Constitution of the Republic were such obvious achievements in his seven months of government that they provoked contempt from conservative forces, allied with powerful U.S. interests. Businessmen, landholders, military men, traders, prominent members of the Catholic Church, the far right (of Trujillo roots), and the U.S. State Department, unified by the “threat” of Communism, joined in a common front to attack the democratic government of Professor Juan Bosch.

The coup d’etat of September 25, 1963 put the Triumvirate in power, a repressive government that would be led, after its brief initial period, by Donald Read Cabral.