Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: Government and Politics
idential reelection, the Assembly elected Santana to two consecutive
terms. These actions initiated a pattern in which a
strong executive imposed constitutional hypocrisy; careful
attention to form went hand in hand with violation of the substance
of democratic process and rights.
Genuine efforts to put in place more liberal constitutions
that restricted centralized, authoritarian power continued,
however. Thus, an even more liberal constitution was prepared
in 1854. It, too, was almost immediately modified to vitiate it of
an effective legislative check on executive authority: all control
over the armed forces was placed directly in the hands of the
president. Later in 1854, an essentially authoritarian constitutional
text was enacted because Santana, eager to ensure himself
even more constitutional authority, successfully pressured
the Congress for the change. The change reduced Congress
from two chambers to a single, seven-member Senate that was
to meet only three months a year; moreover, the president
could suspend civil and political rights if deemed necessary.
Meanwhile, the country soon descended into a lengthy civil
war in which figures from the Cibao region emerged victorious.
In 1858 in Moca, an even more liberal and democratic constitutional
text was enacted, although, as in 1854, it was never
implemented. For the first time in the country's history, however,
the constitution called for direct elections for major
elected posts; it also prohibited presidential reelection, decentralized
authority, and prohibited the death penalty for political
crimes.
From the enactment of a Dominican constitution in 1865,
following the forced departure of the Spanish, until the United
States military entered the country in 1916, sixteen additional
constitutional changes took place. Most of these were associated
with a change in leadership or with an effort by a leader to
provide a legal cover for the extension of his term in office. Yet,
they also represented a struggle between the two different constitutional
traditions represented by the constitutions of 1854
and 1858. Thus, when Buenaventura Baez Mendez and the Red
Party (Partido Rojo) took power in 1865, they forced the Congress
to enact a more authoritarian text, in imitation of that of
1854; when Baez was overthrown a year later, a more liberal
text was decreed. In turn, when Baez resumed the presidency
in 1868, a constitutional shift again occurred. Constitutional
changes occurred each year from 1874 to 1879 reflecting the
revolts and changes in government that took place. The pat-
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