Juan Bosch

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Juan Bosch bigraphy, stories - President of the Dominican Republic

Juan Bosch : biography

June 30, 1909 – November 1, 2001

Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño (30 June 1909, La Vega – 1 November 2001, Santo Domingo) was a politician, historian, short story writer, essayist, educator, and the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic for a brief time in 1963. Previously, he had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo for over 25 years. To this day he is remembered as an honest politician and regarded as one of the most prominent writers in Dominican literature. He founded both the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) in 1939 and the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) in 1973.

In 1934 he married Isabel García and had two children with her: Leon and Carolina. During Trujillo’s dictatorship, Bosch was jailed for his political ideas, being released after several months. In 1938, Bosch managed to leave the country, settling in Puerto Rico.

Coup d’état

On September 25, 1963, after only seven months in office, Bosch was overthrown in a coup led by Colonel Elías Wessin and replaced by a three-man military junta. Bosch went back to exile in Puerto Rico.

Less than two years later, growing dissatisfaction generated another military rebellion on April 24, 1965, that demanded Bosch’s restoration. The insurgents, commanded by Colonel Francisco Caamaño, removed the junta from power but on April 28, with United States assistance in the civil war dispatching 42,000 troops to the island.

An interim government was formed, and elections were fixed for July 1, 1966. Bosch returned to the country and ran as his party’s presidential candidate. However, he ran a somewhat muted campaign, fearing for his safety and believing he’d be thrown out of office by the military again if he won. He was soundly defeated by Joaquín Balaguer, who garnered 57% of the vote.

During the last half of the 1960s, Bosch remained a very prolific writer of essays, both political and historical. He published some of his most important works during this time: "Dominican Social Composition", "Brief History of the Oligarchy in Santo Domingo", "From Christopher Columbus to Fidel Castro", and numerous articles of different sorts.

By 1970, Bosch had the intention of reorganizing the PRD, and turning its members into active, studious militants of the historical and social reality of the country. His project was not accepted by most of the PRD, most of whose members were turning in a more mainstream social democratic direction. Also, given the military repression, and lack of political equality between the PRD and the official Reformist Party, Bosch abstained from the 1970 elections.

The differences and contradictions between Bosch and an important sector of the PRD, as well as the corruption that had started to grow within the party, made him leave the organization in 1973, and thus he founded the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) on December 15 of that same year.

Later he ran unsuccessfully for president as the PLD candidate in 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, and 1994. He came closest to winning in 1990, but there were serious allegations of fraud against Balaguer.

After placing third in the 1994 election, Bosch retired from politics. He was already 83 years old and presumably suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In 1996 he was practically carried to the consolidation of the "Patriotic Front", an alliance between the PLD and his lifelong opponent Balaguer, as part of the latter’s plan to defeat the PRD in the next presidential election.

A long exile

By 1939 Bosch had gone to Cuba, where he directed an edition of the completed works of Eugenio María de Hostos, something that defined his patriotic and humanist ideals. In July, with other Dominican expatriates, he founded the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), which stood out as the most active front against Trujillo outside the Dominican Republic.He was the first president that was democratic.

Bosch heavily sympathised with leftist ideas, but he always denied any communist affiliation. He collaborated with the Cuban Revolutionary Party and had an important role in the making of the Constitution that was promulgated in 1940.