Dominican Republic: the opposition candidate leads the presidential election

The candidate of the modern Revolutionary Party (opposition) Luis Abinader leads the presidential election on Sunday in the Dominican Republic with 54.07% of the vote, according to partial official results. For his part, Gonzalo Castillo, 59, candidate of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD, center-left), the formation of outgoing president Danilo Medina, obtains 36.02% of the votes, according to these results announced by the Central Election Commission which relate to 20% of ballots counted. In third place comes former Dominican President Leonel Fernandez (1996-2000, 2004-2008 and 2008-2012), with 8.80% of the vote.

Luis Abinader is a 52-year-old businessman. On June 11, he announced that he had contracted Covid-19, but has since recovered. If no candidate obtains 51% of the vote, a second round will take place on July 26. A success of Luis Abinader would put an end to 16 years of reign without sharing the PLD.

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In addition to their president, the 7.5 million Dominican voters were called to elect their vice-president as well as the two chambers of Parliament. The elections in this tourism-dependent Caribbean country were held against the backdrop of an explosion in the number of cases of new coronavirus. Authorities reported 1,036 new cases on Saturday, the largest daily increase since the pandemic began in the country in early March. To date, the authorities have identified 36,184 cases of Covid-19 for 786 deaths.