Rafael Trujillo's assassination on May 30, 1961, did not bring the immediate collapse of his dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. The conspiracy that killed him succeeded only in its first phase, since the plotters' second objective, overthrowing the Trujillo government itself, could not be carried out because of a series of setbacks and unforeseen events that threw the plan off course.
Trujillo's son, Ramfis Trujillo, together with his uncles Hector Bienvenido and Jose Arismendy Trujillo, the senior military leadership of the government and some of the intellectuals who formed part of the political establishment, acted with surprising speed and effectiveness, preventing the collapse of the dictatorship's machinery. Trujillo had ruled the Caribbean nation since 1930, one of the longest-standing dictatorships in Latin America.
To win the backing of the administration of United States President John F. Kennedy, the government headed jointly by Ramfis Trujillo and Joaquin Balaguer pursued a strategy of political opening. It allowed prominent figures to return from exile, while conditions became more favorable for the emergence of political parties.
A Country in Transition
By 1961 the Dominican Republic had undergone notable changes. The population had grown to more than three million people, and the country's territorial and political division had shifted considerably: from twelve provinces in 1930 to 25 provincial demarcations plus a National District by 1961.
Significant road infrastructure had also been built, connecting regions of the country that had been far more isolated in the period before the first United States military occupation of 1916. This allowed greater commercial and social exchange between towns in the interior. Although most of the population still lived in rural areas, after Trujillo's death the country entered a rapid process of urbanization, industrialization and modernization, as a more open society began to emerge.
Bosch's Election and Short-Lived Presidency
Under a transitional, collegial government known as the Council of State, presidential elections were held in December 1962. Juan Bosch, then the leading figure of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), was elected by an overwhelming majority.
Bosch was sworn in as constitutional president on February 27, 1963. It marked an extraordinary political moment: for the first time in nearly five decades, Dominicans had freely chosen the nation's head of state. The democratic experiment lasted just seven months, but in that short period the country made significant gains in public freedoms.
The 1963 Constitution
One of the first actions of Bosch's government was to push through the drafting of a new political constitution, which became the most liberal the Dominican Republic produced in the 20th century. On April 29, 1963, the National Congress, sitting as a Revising Assembly, proclaimed the new charter, which took effect the following month.
The 1963 Constitution broke new ground in both form and content. Some specialists believe the wider population was not fully prepared for such a liberal text, which provided for judges to be elected through the Senate rather than at the will of the sitting president, set the presidential term at four years and barred immediate reelection.
It also proclaimed freedom to unionize and the right of peasants to land, banned large landholdings known as latifundios, and established the full force of human rights and public liberties. The account of this period continues in a further installment.
