Friday 30 March 2012

Political cars

Elections will have to wait, now I want to talk about political cars.

Cars are important in this country, both in the cities because they are now built as US cities in which cars are a must (but also due to the heat which makes walking uncomfortable, lack of effective public transportation in the cities, despite the new Metro, and the lack of sidewalks), but also in the rural areas due to distances and other factors. Not only are cars important, but due to the low quality of the roads and a host of other reasons (such as the importance of looking good in your car, social status, road security, and just be bigger than the others), the DR is the country (or at least last time I checked 3 years back) with the highest proportion of SUVs compared to other cars in the world. That is quite impressive for a country that is not among the richest Latin American nations.

This blog posting, however is about political cars, and I will mention three models: The old WV Beetle (Cepillo), BMW (of the early 1980s) and the Toyota Land Rover Prado. All of these cars have gained a bad reputation among the Dominican people.

A curious fact about the DR since the 1960s it has been almost impossible to see the VW Beetle in the streets of the country. This is a surprise for several reasons. First of all the Beetle has been one of the most sold cars worldwide. And another reason is that it has been popular in Latin America since it was rather economical, but also produced in Mexico and Brazil. The reason for the lack of Beetles, or Cepillos, in the DR is that they were used by the notorious secret police SIM (Servicio de Intelegencia Militar) led by the hated and deceiptful Johnny Abbes under the Trujillo regime. The black Beetles would be driven around the cities and towns to spread fear and keep people under tight control by the regime. As in most authoritarian regime, the secret police would find a way to oversee any activity, suspicious or not, and know as many details as possible about as many as possible. After Trujillo was assassined on May 30 1961, his regime and SIM soon fell apart. Since the Beetle was identified and linked to violence, disappearances, and other atrocities, nobody wanted to buy it after Trujillo fell. Therefore, you can only today, as well as earlier, only find a handful of these cars across the country.

BMW is another german brand that is very popular worldwide, although somewhat more luxurious and expensive than the Beetle. And it is due to the price and luxuriousness of this car that it has a special political history in the DR. After 12 years of conservative rule by Joaquín Balaguer, who served as president under the Trujillo regime, the social-democratic opposition party, PRD (Partido Revolucionario Dominicano) won the presidency in 1978 and again in 1982. In 1978 it was Antonio Guzmán who served as president, a man who today is respected for guiding the country through the transition to democracy and for being honest and not corrupt. Other parts of his government, including President Guzmán's daughter, however, were accused of corruption. In 1982 Salvador Jorge Blanco won the presidency for the PRD promising democracy with social justice, and focusing on social redistribution a factor he felt had been neglected under the Guzmán presidency. 1982 (and the 1980s in general), however, was not a good year for Latin America, and the DR soon were facing tough economic battles, which led to several rounds of inflation and devaluation of the Dominican Peso (which some years back had been pegged to the US dollar at 1:1). In midst of an economic crisis (which the government managed quite well, actually), however, many people linked to the government started driving around in fancy new BMWs, and showing off money which the newly rich like to do. The contrast between the economic troubles and the apparent corruption was stark, and the Jorge Blanco government therefore (maybe undeserved) has been remembered as one of the more corrupt governments in modern history. BMW came to be linked to this corruption and the governing party, the PRD, and suddenly became a very unpopular car. You would not like to be seen driving around in such a car in the years after Jorge Blanco left the presidency in 1986 since everyone would assume you got the car for free (or free of any taxes) from the government, and that you were corrupt. BMWs therefore became unpopular and were a rare sight for many years. Walking around Santo Domingo today, however, I see that the newly rich lack knowledge of history or just plainly don't mind, and drive around in the newest, biggest and fastest BMWs you can get your hands on.

Today another brand is tarnished by connections to the government, but today the contrast between the cars the middle and upper middle classes drive and the government-friendly groups drive, is diminished. As mentioned above, the DR has the highest proportion of SUVs compared to other cars in the world. Therefore it is only natural that the government has advanced from a BMW to a Yipeta as they say over here. For a long time it was the Mitsubishi Montero (or Pajero in most other non-Spanish speaking countries) that was popular in government circles, but the recent Leonel governments has taken it up a notch. Now it is the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, commonly known as the Prado, which is the government Yipeta. You will see them with official licence plates (OC) driving around Santo Domingo in the weeks, and all over the country in the weekends when government employees travel back home or on weekend trips. People are annoyed by the Prado for several reasons. There are many of them and it is a luxury car. In fact, I think, including all brands, that there are more official cars (license plate OC) in Santo Domingo than there are diplomatic cars (License plate CD) in Brussels which is home to EU, NATO, a load of embassies, etc. Many also seem to be annoyed with the fact that people driving these cars today were in no position to drive such cars before entering government. In other words they have become richer than what their social status before Leonel allowed for (i.e. undeserving rich). Today, however, many people drive around in luxury cars in the capital. Walking around certain areas in Santo Domingo seems like walking around in Hollywood (although I have never been there) considering the cars people drive. Therefore the stigma of the Prado is much weaker than what is was for the BMW 25 years ago, but it is strong enough that I think that if Mejía of the PRD wins the election, the Prado will be out and new Yipetas will come in (my bet is on big Ford models, actually).

There are clearly other stigmatised political cars in the DR as well, Hyundai models from the 2002 Pan-American games is one example, the buses under the first Leonel government is another, the three above, however, are the most notorious. If any reader should know of more car-stories like this in the DR or other places, please comment.

Monday 26 March 2012

Monday March 26...in Santo Domingo

Some of the posts I put out will be more of a diary type and shortly summarise some of the last events of the elections and politics more in general. This is one of these posts.

Yesterday was an important date for the elections since the Junta Central Electoral (www.jce.do) officially accepted the candidacies for president and vice president, and started verifying the electoral roll (census of registered voters). PLD runs with Danilo Medina and Margarita Cedeño, PRD with Hipólito Mejía and Luis Abinader, and PRSC will not have a proper candidate but supports officially Danilo Medina (you can actually vote for Medina on a PRSC ticket on May 20). There are four more groups of candidates from minor parties (if parties is the proper name for any of the political parties in the country right now): Eduardo Estrella for DxC (Dominicanos por el Cambio), Estrella from Cibao was presidential candidate for the PRSC in 2004, in 2008 he ran as presidential candidate for PRSD (Partido Revolucionario Social Demócrata, Hatuey DeCamps splinter party from the PRD...interestingly after a deal PRSD will this year support Mejía and the PRD and DeCamps has become one of Mejía's campaign managers...evil tongues have it that DeCamps does this only to bury Mejía as a revenge against Mejía running for re-election in 2004). This is therefore Estrella's third bid for the presidency, for his third party, in eight years. Max Puig is the presidential candidate for Alianza por la democracia, APD, a party he founded when he officially left the PLD. Puig was as recently as 2004 named environmental minister by Fernández, and until recently his party has supported and allied with the PLD. The real "independent candidate" this year, and one who might be popular with the middle classes who are tired of the same old from the established parties, is Guillermo Moreno for the party Alianza País. Moreno is a lawyer, a popular education among Dominican politicians and he has earlier worked as an academic, lawyer and as prosecutor general in Santo Domingo. Earlier he has represented MIUCA (Movimiento Independencia Unidad y Cambio), which used to play the role as the intelectual alternative to the major parties but this year supports Julian Serrulle (see below). If Moreno can capture enough votes of the people who are "jarto", then there might be a second round in the presidential elections. The last candidate is Julian Serrulle for the Frente Amplio party. Serrulle comes from a well-known political family as well and just as Max Puig he considered himself close to Juan Bosch, and the PLD. In sum we have the two main candidates, two independent candidates that come out of the PLD, one from the PRSC and one which has very little history with the main parties.

JCE also started revising the electoral roll, which means checking that all with a right to vote is registered as a voter and registered at a polling station that enables voting. Historically, the electoral roll (padrón electoral) has been the source of electoral fraud in the country, most famously in 1994 with the displacement of up to 300.000 voters, but this year I do not think one should expect any greater problems. The OAS has been present to oversee the revision, but the PRD (just to be sure) is on top of the process and is complaining that their voters (in particular) may be displaced. There has been a few reasons for concern regarding the Center for computing in the JCE, partly because both in the Center and the JCE key members are considered to be too closely associated with the PLD. Since this promises to be a close election, such concerns should be taken seriously.

On another note, today Diario Libre ran a story that nicely demonstrates the workings of a clientelistic state. The DR political culture and regime must be caracterised as clientelistic, and Hartlyn in his 1998 book called the regime neopatrimonial. This is a description that still fits today. Diario Libre could report that 80% of the vice-ministers (sub-secretary of state) are inorganic, which means that they are not nominated by law. It also means that these do not do any work for the state, they only receive a salary. Most of these do not even have an office. In total Diario Libre found that only 36 vice-ministers are nominated according to the law and potentially do any real work for the government. 154 vice-ministers are not nominated according to the law and probably do not do anything for the government, except receive a salary, potentially a car and maybe some funds for private security, etc. There are 20 ministries in the country, so the total sum of 190 vice-ministers is quite high. The PRD economist, or economist with a known affiliation with the PRD, Andrés Dauhajre Jr. came to an even higher figure last year. He argues that there are 334 vice-ministers in the country. The actual minister of Public Administration, Ramón Ventura, reports that his ministry has produced regulations of the nomination of vice-ministers, and he has given his colleagues until June to remove any superfluous vice-ministers. My guess is that this regulation will not be respected and that things will continue like they are even after the elections. The reason is that vice-ministries are currency for alliances (together with among other things the presidency of the Liga Municipal Dominicana), and these are as important as ever given that ideological differences are almost non-existent between the main parties (this is confirmed by the Elite surveys done by the Universidad de Salamanca). Supporting the two top candidates are for the PLD: PRSC, BIS (former Peña Gómez, PRD, faction), UDC (Unión Demócrata Cristiana), Partido Quiqueyano Demócrata Cristiano, FNP (Fuerza Nacional Progresista), Partido de los Trabajadores Dominicanos (PTD), Partido Popular Cristiano, Partido Demócrata Popular, Partido Cívico Renovador, Partido Liberal de la República Dominicana, Partido de Acción Liberal (PAL), Partido Socialista Verde and Partido de la Unidad Nacional. Supporting the PRD we find the former splinter party PRSD, Partido Demócrata Institucional, Partido Movimiento Democrático Alternativo, Partido Humanista Dominicano and Partio Alianza Social Dominicana. All in all 18 parties, which are not really parties, but entities of electoral accountability that helps the main party keep scores of how many votes the minor parties contributed with in their victory. From that score, once in government, a president may start paying out. And, they pay out with vice-ministries.

A last funny note was a letter of opinion written in Hoy on March 23 by Ramón Arturo Guerrero, which compared Leonel Fernández with President-elect Putin of Russia. I expected a nice story about how Medina would be for Leonel what Medvedev was to Putin, but no. It was a piece comparing their backgrounds growing up in authoritarian systems, education, etc. and which compared their popularity. Both leaders, Guerrero argued, implemented democracy in their respective countries and ruled with high quality. Guerrero concludes that Fernández as Putin, could come back in 2016 (and for some reason be re-elected in 2020, apparently Guerrero assumes that someone will reform the constitution again and open for immediate presidential re-election, again). Although I am critical to President Fernández's work as president, I must say that he strikes as somewhat more democratic than Putin. Guerrero, who obviously is a Fernández supporter, did not make a very flattering comparison for his president.

Sunday 25 March 2012

The battle over education in the DR


(One has to be careful when using blogger on Iphone...I accidentally deleted this blog from March 25, and repost it now)
A bit more than a year ago, the DR suddenlyexperienced one of its first modern collective, civil-society mobilisations,and it articulated demands for better quality in the education system in thecountry. The protests hit President Leonel Fernández quite hard and the size,level of uproar and level of mobilisation was a surprise, I think, both to thegovernment and everyone else.

The demands were for the government to comply with law 66/97 that stipulates that the education ministry shouldreceive funds equivalent to 4% of the country's GDP. The law was passed duringLeonel's first government, but with the votes also from the opposition (PRD).Anyway, since 1997 the governments have never met this target, and the fundsgiven to education has lingered between 1.5-1.8% of GDP since 1998. Obviously,all three Fernández administrations and the Mejía administration violated theeducation law.

Last year groups mainly from the middleclass organised rather spontaneously and using new social networks to demandthat the government comply with the law of education and spend 4% of GDP oneducation. The group used yellow as its colour and the message was simple (as it was unrealistic): Idemand 4%. Leonel's nice rhetoric finally met with the hard realities and thetwo did not match up. The organisers of the 4% actions were so succesful thatthe government became rather desperate. Suddenly people wearing yellow t-shirts were denied access to the cathedral, national monuments and other publicplaces. (the serious) Parts of Leonel's own party started demanding that forthe 2011 budget the President should correct former wrongs and add more fundsto education. The opposition of course was also demanding (suddenly) more fundsfor education, even though in all previous years the PRD and PRSC had remainedrelatively silent on the subject. The whole debacle was an interestingdemonstration of civil society mobilisation moving setting the agenda andcreating sufficient momentum to actually achieve positive results. I wasactually quite impressed since this does not occur frequently in the DR (exceptfor taxi drivers and transporters' strikes which generally achieve their goals).

To almost everyone's disappointment, Leonel presented a budget for 2011 (andlater for 2012) that did not increase the funds for education, and Congress passed a law that basically gave President Fernández the right to violate the 66/97 education law and spend less than that law stipulated on education. Leonel thus presenteda budget that maintained funding for education stable at about 1.8% of GDP. Theprotests, however, together with an internal dissent in the PLD led Congress toincrease funds for education about 4,000 million DOP, which could beinterpreted as a victory (albeit a small one) for the opposition and the 4%group. This of course was old news until FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales) and others decided to follow up the government's effort ineducation. A recent report by FLACSO picked up by Diario Libre, Hoy and othernews media, demonstrated that the ministry of education spent 6,788 million DOPless than budgeted by congress. The ministry thus spent less than theadministration had originally proposed in the budget. In fact the ministryspent only about 85% of what was budgeted after Congress's increase of about4,000 million DOP. The renowned journalist Juan Bolívar Díaz called it "Otra burla a la voluntad popular" in the newspaper Hoy on Sunday, March 25.

This news has come back to haunt the PLDgovernment led by Leonel Fernández, himself an educated, and intellectual,president, who one would think, believing in his speeches, would supporteducation. The story became big news both in Diario Libre, Acento and Hoy. My research, however, demonstrates that the recent negligence ineducation, and the recent under-spending, is not new, but rather follows up along-held legacy since Balaguer's 12 años (1966-1978) (for more, see for instance my Master's thesis and my article in ALH.
The graph above shows spending compared to passed budget in the ministry of education from 1966-2009 (data based on official proposed budget and executed budget). Basically the graph demonstrates that it is quite normal that DR administrations spend less money on education than what is originally budgeted. In fact from 1966-2009, on average only 87% of the budget was spent by the ministry of education. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the ministry of education only managed to spend 85% of its budgeted funds in 2011. The graph, however, also demonstrates that the trend is that governments in the DR are improving. Starting out at about 80% of spent allocations, the ministry of education today is spending on average more than 90% of its funds. This indeed, is a positive development, even though it has taken more than forty years... 

But, how much do Dominican governments spend on education? Generally the country score extremely low in Latin American comparisons. The following graph tracks the percentage of all budget expenses that goes to education in the same 1966-2009 period.
Now, beware that this is percentage of all budget expenses, not percentage of GDP which the big 4% debate is about. The graph demonstrates first that as share of all budget expenses became less important as the Balaguer administrations (1966-1978, 1986-1990) progressed, and that education received its lowest share of the budget during the Balaguer regimes. Furthermore, the administrations that took over after Balaguer (PRD 1978, PLD in 1996) increased drastically education's share of total budget expenses. However, under both PRD's first and second stint in power (1992-86, 2000-04), education lost importance with time, in both periods maybe due to the on-going economic hardship that hit the PRD administrations. After Mejía left power in 2004, Fernández's administrations did not increase spending to education, and the budgets have stabilised about 8-10% of all budget expenses.

What can we conclude: All administrations do not pay sufficient attention to education in the DR, all administration tend to give less money than budgeted to education, a fact that makes matters worse, and all administrations since 1997 have broken the law (and some might say the constitution). There is therefore good reasons to be sceptical towards the candidates' promises of 4% to education. Regardless of this it is also important that the well-intentioned groups fighting for the 4% target accept compromises along the road since doubling the education ministry's budget would not bevery fruitful. The education ministry would probably not know how to tackle so much funds and it would only open up for more corruption. What one could hope for is stable increases in the budget share for education so that in maybe 10 years the country might reach the target established by law. The great disappointment for the Dominicans should be that this development never started in 1998.

Thursday 22 March 2012

Welcome to my blog

This is the first, short post in my newly created blog on Dominican politics, and in particular the Dominican 2012 presidential elections, which I will be following "on site" in Santo Domingo from now and until May 20.

I will try to sum up and analyse important events during the campaign and maybe also draw some lines between the current campaign and recent political history in the country.
Currently the election campaign is heating up and there are basically too many things going on for me to capture every detail. Some of the issues I do want to focus on in the days and weeks to come, however, are the candidates: Danilo Medina and Hipólito Mejía for the PLD (Partido de la Liberación Dominicana) and PRD (Partido de la Revolución Dominicana), respectively, who both ran as presidential candidates in 2000 when Mejía ; the party system and main political parties (PLD, PRD and the rests of the split PRSC); the scandals and more than anything else the corruption allegations; connected to this I hope to get time to write on the so-called Margaritagate which included allegations that the current First Lady and candidate for the Vice-Presidency for PLD, Margarita Cedeño, had a bank-account in Denmark with 43 million €; Felix Bautista, the strong-man, Leonel's protegé and friend, and PLD-senator who has been involved in corruption schemes earlier and now may be one of the reasons for the recent change of Prime Minister in Haiti; current President Leonel Fernández merits some words, already president for twelve years and younger than Balaguer was before he started his "doce años" in 1966; another very interesting topic is the war of the surveys in the campaign and how these are used by the candidates; the political party alliances and the minor parties; the father and son party FNP (Fuerza Nacional Progresista) that has supported the PLD since 1996 in a xenophobic alliance; and the message (or lack thereof) of the candidates in this campaign.

These are only some topics that I hope to start blogging about already tomorrow.

As a short intro I can say that the presidential elections for 2012 will be a battle between two candidates, PLD's Danilo Medina who picked the first lady Margarita Cedeño as his vice-presidential candidate, and PRD's Hipólito Mejía who picked Luis Abinader from a traditional PRD family as his vice-presidential candidate. It will be a very tight race and there are two uncertainties going on at the moment: Who will win? And, will there be a need for a second electoral round? In the DR there is a ballotage if the leading candidate does not obtain at least 50% of the votes in the first round. This rule was implemented for the 1996 presidential election, and this year was the only year that a second round was needed (Leonel Fernández beat José Francisco Peña Gómez, PRD, in the second round). In 2000 Hipólito Mejía was very close to reaching 50% of the votes in the first round, and after presidential candidate Balaguer, PRSC, had said there wouldn't be any need for a second round, Mejía was declared the winner. In the 2004 and 2008 Fernández obtained more than 50% of the votes in the first round in two-horse races against Hipólito Mejía and Miguel Vargas (PRD). Whether there will be a second round or not this time, depends on how many votes the minor parties can catch and the closeness of the race among the two main contenders. The PRSC this year has basically decided to retire its own party, now controlled by Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, and supports Medina in this race.


Up until recently my money would have been on Hipólito Mejía and the PRD. First because I think many are tired of the PLD rule and the great difference between Leonel's rhetoric and socio-economic realities. Second, sufficent new voters have been enrolled and sufficient older voters have forgotten that between 2000-2004 Hipólito Mejía most likely was the worst president (at least in economic terms) since the start of democracy in 1978. Three, Medina is not a very popular candidate outside the PLD-organisation. The last couple of months I have started slowly to change my mind since Margarita gives Medina access to state resources during the campaign, and she lets him get a hold on Leonel followers. This might be enough to get him elected. I think a Medina victory might be good for democracy in the country because it would weaken somewhat Leonel's hold on the PLD and open that party up, and the PRD might have to get some new and younger blood into the leadership of the party. A Mejía victory might be bad for the country if he rules like he did last time, and it would strengthen both Leonel and Mejía's position in their respective parties. On the other hand, a change in government after 8 years of PLD might be even more important for the country's democracy, but if this happens it is a bit sad that presidency will be handed over to a "devil we know" (to cite political scientist Javier Corrales).

Hopefully we will know on May 20 who wins, and then we will know if Hartlyn's hypothesis from his 1998 book that the tighter the election the higher risk for an electoral crisis, is correct. Although I hope that an electoral crisis will be avoided in this presumably tight election, I do think that the tighter the election result the more advantegous for the incumbent party. Luckily the Junta Central Electoral is a much more professional electoral organiser now than in 1994, although it seems somewhat more politicised (and PLD) dominated than before.