Dominican President Luis Abinader said on September 7 that his government had endured "three blows in six years": the COVID-19 pandemic, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the conflict between the United States and Iran. Speaking during his weekly Monday address, he said that despite those shocks, the Dominican peso had remained stable and the economy had kept growing.
A newspaper column published this week argues that while Abinader is largely right to claim success in weathering those crises, and deserves credit for it, his choice of words carries an unintended echo of Dominican history, and that leaning on external shocks to explain economic performance has become a familiar strategy for the country's leaders since the return of democracy.
Echoes of the Trujillo era
The column notes that the phrase "the three blows" has a specific history in the Dominican Republic. Under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the country from 1930 to 1961, the National Guard required pedestrians to produce three items on demand: their national identity card, known as the cedula; their membership card for the ruling Dominican Party, nicknamed "la palmita"; and their mandatory military service card. Anyone unable to produce all three risked being sent straight to jail, known colloquially as "la chirola."
The column cites a second historical reference from the mid-20th century. In Cutupu, a rural area between the towns of La Vega and Moca, a folk figure nicknamed Tilin offered a remedy known as "the three blows of Tilin," said to be an effective treatment for intestinal parasites. The affliction later became largely irrelevant, the column notes, as public health campaigns and the requirement to wear shoes reduced parasitic infections.
The columnist writes that Dominican opposition figures have used past moments when governments blamed poor economic performance on outside shocks to promote the idea that certain leaders are cursed by what is known in local folklore as a "fucu," a jinx blamed for persistent bad luck.
Contrasting responses to past crises
The column draws a contrast between how two moments of crisis were used politically in Dominican history. Trujillo used the destruction the San Zenon cyclone caused in Santo Domingo in 1930 to position himself as the rebuilder of the capital and cement his hold on power. The oil shocks of the 1970s and 1980s, by contrast, were used by opposition figures to discredit the governments of the time, branding them as possessed by what the column describes as a malign entity.
According to the column, San Zenon became a launching pad for Trujillo because he pressed ahead with reconstruction despite scarce resources, rather than lamenting the disaster, treating it instead as a fact that demanded decisive action. Leaders of the country's democratic era, the columnist argues, have tended instead to cast themselves as victims of external forces to justify results that, while acceptable, leave room to wonder whether more could have been achieved.
Other measures of success
The column lists a series of achievements it says the Dominican Republic could point to instead of, or alongside, having weathered global shocks. These include a wider reach for social security protections covering the most vulnerable, a dramatic reduction in femicides and traffic accidents, and progress correcting the severe traffic congestion that the columnist says drains productivity and shortens life expectancy.
The writer also points to a significant reduction in the trade deficit, the current account deficit, and the fiscal and quasi-fiscal deficit, including in the electricity sector, along with a relative decline in current government spending, developments the column says would reinforce the strength of the economy.
Other trends cited include growing formalization of the labor market, an end to the exodus of Dominicans abroad who later send remittances home, workers returning to construction, agriculture and services, a sustained decline in irregular labor, and rising investment and savings ratios.
By contrast, the column notes that the country has not seen a significant improvement in its results on the PISA exams, an international standardized test used to compare education systems across countries, calling that an example of where there is no cause for celebration.
Call for deeper reforms
The column cites the thinking of Ramon Flores, laid out in his recent book, that true modernization rests on the solidity of institutions, the excellence of a country's human talent, and the collective courage to undertake deep reforms with discipline and a sense of purpose.
The columnist describes Abinader as well-intentioned, in good health, hardworking and aligned with the country's best interests, but says that with those qualities he should not settle for avoiding reforms or repeating arguments other leaders have already worn thin.
The column concludes that most Dominicans would like to see Abinader act as a statesman seeking to leave a legacy, willing to tackle the structural problems the country still needs resolved, calling that a privilege available to few. It says Abinader still has time to achieve it, but not much, and that the time remaining is scarce.
