Dominican Republic Slow Pokes

At the Central Electoral Board in the capital of Santo Domingo last week, a special police unit maintained an around-the-clock watch over election computers. Days had passed since nearly 2 million Dominicans waited in line, sometimes for as long as eight hours, to cast votes in the May 16 presidential election. Still the country was without a new leader.

After 92% of the ballots had been tallied, conservative former President Joaquin Balaguer, 78, held a slender 35,000-vote lead over Jacobo Majluta, 51, the candidate of the ruling Dominican Revolutionary Party. Then, without explanation, the counters stopped counting. At that point Majluta suddenly declared himself the victor and demanded that two of the three board members be replaced by alternates for allegedly disqualifying thousands of his supporters. Balaguer and the third-place candidate Juan Bosch promptly protested that the two replacements favored Majluta. Later, Balaguer and Majluta agreed to seek the selection of an entirely new board. At week's end the ballot count was still incomplete, and 6.4 million Dominicans remained in the dark.

Even if the frail Balaguer wins, he is unlikely to offer Dominicans much of a fresh start. Virtually sightless, he hardly allayed voters' doubts, when he assured them on TV, "My problem, really, is I cannot read." The veteran politician has also been sharply criticized for human rights abuses during his presidency between 1966 and 1978.

The future President's first priority will be economic rehabilitation. The government of Incumbent President Salvador Jorge Blanco has managed to attract some foreign investors and reduce inflation from 38% to 14%. Nonetheless, the economy continues to be weighed down by a $3.6 billion foreign debt and an unemployment rate of 28%.

A deeper problem, though, may be the country's still unsteady advance toward democracy. President Jorge Blanco admitted that last week's confusion revived "memories of the days when the democratic process was threatened constantly." Indeed, the ballot count after the 1978 presidential election was halted by the military, forcing President Carter to intercede to break the deadlock. The losing candidate then? None other than Joaquin Balaguer.