President of Dominican Republic Takes Office With Eye to the Future

Leonel Fernandez became the Dominican Republic’s youngest president Friday, ending a long history of strongman dictators and promising political and economic reform for this troubled Caribbean nation.

The 42-year-old lawyer, who grew up in New York, was elected with the support of the two octogenarians whose rivalry has dominated Dominican politics for the past three decades: Joaquin Balaguer, who has been president for 22 of the past 30 years; and Juan Bosch, founder of Fernandez’s Dominican Liberation Party.

In a conciliatory inauguration speech, Fernandez paid tribute to both of them as well as to Jose Francisco Pena Gomez, 59, the former mayor of Santo Domingo whom he narrowly defeated in a bitter election that deeply divided this country.

The new president also placed all three men firmly in Dominican history as he emphasized the need to prepare this nation for the future.

Fernandez outlined plans to end corruption, including a presidential commission and new powers for the attorney general. He spoke of his plans to overcome the severe economic problems that have forced 1 million of the 7 million Dominicans to emigrate--often illegally--to the United States.

A New York Knicks basketball fan who speaks English with a New York accent, Fernandez has said he sympathizes with those emigrants.

The inauguration took place on what the Dominicans mark as the 133rd anniversary of their independence from Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with this now more prosperous country.

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During a ceremony in the walnut-paneled congressional auditorium attended by only one foreign president, Rafael Caldera of Venezuela, Fernandez accepted the blue, white and red sash of office from Balaguer.

Although he will turn 90 next month, Balaguer--a protege of assassinated strongman Rafael Leonidas Trujillo who first became president after the U.S. intervened 31 years ago--was clearly not ready to turn over power, analysts said.

He called a presidential election this year only because of intense international pressure after his own fraud-marred reelection in 1994. He reluctantly supported Fernandez in the June runoff to thwart his old enemy Pena Gomez, who won the first round in May.

Many Dominicans worry that Balaguer will continue to exert power through his Social Christian Reformist Party’s congressional delegation, which is much larger than the single senator and 10% of the lower house claimed by Fernandez’s party.

“His hands are tied because the legislative and judicial powers are in the hands of the opposition,” historian Maria Elena Munoz said of Fernandez.

The new president confronted such concerns head on, saying: “If you cannot conceive of a government where the executive branch does not dominate the legislature, how does Bill Clinton govern? How did Ronald Reagan and George Bush govern?

“Countries can be governed democratically,” he added. “Instead of seeing this as a weak administration, we should see this as an opportunity.”

Further, he noted the similarities in the campaign platforms of the three major parties--all calling for an end to electric power failures, improved law enforcement, privatization, and modernization of the health care, education and banking laws.

“Why can’t we work together?” he asked.

Fernandez and the National Congress have plenty of work ahead, analysts said.

“Balaguer is leaving a lot of problems,” said Antonio Isa Conde, a founder of the civic group Citizen Participation.

The organization found, for example, that Balaguer has spent lavishly on his office while being stingy with other government agencies. A report this week by the Central Bank showed that Balaguer owes more than $300,000 in unpaid bills to government suppliers and contractors. Isa Conde estimates that the amount may be nearly twice that much.

Further, the outgoing administration has begun huge public works projects whose completion will eat up the entire federal budget for the rest of the year, Citizen Participation found.