Portal:Dominican Republic/Selected biography

Selected biography 1

Portal:Dominican Republic/Selected biography/1 Danilo Medina Sanchez is the current President of the Dominican Republic, since August 16, 2012. With broad political career, Medina is a member of the Dominican Liberation Party, the political party which has run the government of the country since 2004. He won the May 2012 dominican presidential election, defeating Hipolito Mejía with 51% of the votes.

Medina was born in Arroyo Cano, San Juan Province, in the southwest of the Dominican Republic. He is the oldest of eight brothers born of Juan Pablo Medina and Amelia Sánchez. Since he was 18 years old he was a student leader, founding the San Juan de la Maguana branch of the Frente Revolucionario Estudiantil Nacionalista at the UASD. When Professor Juan Bosch founded the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana in 1973, Medina joined him. He studied economics at Instituto Tecnológico Santo Domingo (INTEC), and graduated magna cum laude in 1984. He has been a member of the Central Committee of the PLD since 1983. In 1986 election he was elected a deputy in Congress. In 1987, he married psychologist Cándida Montilla and has three daughters, Sibeli, Vanessa and Ana Paula. (more...)

Selected biography 2

Portal:Dominican Republic/Selected biography/2 Dominicans are people who are ethnically associated with the Dominican Republic. Dominican was historically the name for the inhabitants of the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, the site of the first European settlement in the Western Hemisphere. The culture held in common by most Dominicans is referred to as mainstream Dominican culture, a mixture of different influences and customs having origins predominately in a European cultural basis, largely derived from the traditions of Spain, especially from Andalusia and the Canary Islands. The country has also been highly influenced by African culture, and Native Taino being a significant minority. The Dominican Republic has also received immigration from other parts of Spain such as Catalonia as well as from other European countries such as France and Portugal. (more...)

Selected biography 3

Portal:Dominican Republic/Selected biography/3

Pedro Santana y Familias

Pedro Santana y Familias, 1st Marquis of Las Carreras (June 29, 1801 – June 14, 1864), better known as Pedro Santana, was a Dominican military commander and royalist politician who served as the president of the junta that had established the First Dominican Republic, a precursor to the position of the President of the Dominican Republic, and as the first President of the republic in the modern line of succession. A traditional royalist who was fond of the Spanish crown and the Spanish Empire, he ruled as a governor-general, but effectively as an authoritarian dictator. (More...)

Selected biography 4

Portal:Dominican Republic/Selected biography/4

Leonel Fernández

Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna born December 26, 1953 is a Dominican politician and expresident of the Dominican Republic. He was born in Santo Domingo but spent his childhood and formative years in New York City, United States. He joined the PLD at its inception in 1973, when the late Juan Bosch left the PRD to create the new party. Fernández was a close pupil of Bosch, and was presented as a vice-president candidate with the latter during the 1994 presidential elections. During his first term in office, Fernández's political agenda was one of economic and judicial reform. He helped enhance Dominican participation in hemispheric forums, such as the Organization of American States and the Miami Summit. The Dominican economy enjoyed an average growth rate of seven percent, the highest in Latin American in that period, along with countries like South Korea. Inflation was stabilized in the low single digits, the lowest in all of Latin America. He served a four-year term as president between 1996 and 2000.

Fernández also began a very personal and visionary plan to run the Dominican Republic. When developers proposed the country's first modern port during his first term, he said that "We can be the Singapore of the Caribbean." In Santo Domingo city, he built highways and tunnels and favored foreign investment, but delayed fundamental social reforms, like education and public health. (more...)