Hipólito Mejía facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Hipólito Mejía
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Hipólito Mejía, 2003
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| 51st President of the Dominican Republic | |
| In office 16 August 2000 – 16 August 2004 |
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| Vice President | Milagros Ortiz Bosch |
| Preceded by | Leonel Fernández |
| Succeeded by | Leonel Fernández |
| Secretary of Agriculture of the Dominican Republic | |
| In office 16 August 1978 – 16 August 1982 |
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| President | Antonio Guzmán Jacobo Majluta |
| Preceded by | Pedro Agustín Bretón Taveras |
| Succeeded by | José Rafael Ángeles Suárez |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 22 February 1941 Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic |
| Political party | Modern Revolutionary Party Dominican Revolutionary Party |
| Spouse |
Rosa Altagracia Gómez Arias
(m. 1964; |
| Children |
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| Relatives |
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| Alma mater | North Carolina State University |
| Hometown | Gurabo, Dominican Republic |
Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez (born 22 February 1941) is a Dominican-American politician who served as President of the Dominican Republic from 2000 to 2004.
During his presidential term in office the country was affected by one of its worst economic crises, generated by the bankruptcy of three major commercial banks in the country, which resulted in high inflation, high country risk rating, currency devaluation and increasing local poverty. Mejía sent 604 Dominican troops to fight in the Iraq War.
In the presidential election of 2004, he ran for a second term as the candidate of the Dominican Revolutionary Party but he was defeated by Leonel Fernández, whom he had succeeded as president in 2000, from the Dominican Liberation Party.
Early life
Mejía Domínguez was born on 22 February 1941 at the José María Cabral y Báez Hospital in Santiago de los Caballeros, as the first child of Hipólito de Jesús ‘Polín’ Mejía Díaz and María Josefa ‘Marina’ Domínguez Viñals, both native of La Chichigua in Gurabo, place where he was raised. In his hometown he is known as Cabuyita, diminutive for cabuya (Latin American Spanish for "Agave twine"), because of the long blond straight hair that he had during his youth.
Mejía received a high school diploma from the Loyola Polytechnic Institute in San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic, graduating in 1962. Two years later, he attended special programs at North Carolina State University in the United States. On 4 July 1964 he married Rosa Gómez Arias, his third cousin. They have four children, among them, Carolina Mejía de Garrigó, a 2016 vice-presidential candidate.
At age twenty-four, he was appointed director and undersecretary of the national Tobacco Institute. In 1978, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture under the government of President Antonio Guzmán Fernández. During this period, agri-business incentive laws were passed and programs to promote rural agriculture development and technification were undertaken.
In 1982, Mejia was defeated in his campaign to become senator from Santiago Province. In 1990, he was named vice-presidential candidate on the ticket of Dominican Revolutionary Party leader José Francisco Peña Gómez.
Presidency
In 2000, Mejía ran for president as the candidate of the left leaning Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) on a program to increase health, education, and social security services through tax hikes. He led the field in the 2000 presidential election, taking 49.87% of the vote in the first round. His main opponents, Danilo Medina and former president Joaquín Balaguer, received 24.9% and 24.6% of the vote, respectively.
With Mejía just a few thousand votes short of the threshold for avoiding a runoff, his supporters claimed victory and urged Medina to concede. Medina soon realized that he stood no chance of closing a nearly 25-point gap with Mejía, especially when Balaguer suggested that some of his supporters might cross over to the PRD in the runoff. Medina would have needed nearly all of Balaguer's voters to cross over to him in order to have any realistic chance of winning. Accordingly, Medina pulled out of the runoff, handing the presidency to Mejía. Mejía took office on 16 August of that year.
During his presidency, he supported many popular issues, like social security, helping small businesses, agriculture, improving education and helping with adequate housing. He received considerable support from the people during the first two years of his mandate, which caused his party to win the congressional and municipal elections taking control of the Senate with 29 out of 31 senators.
During Mejía’s term, the country's second largest privately held commercial bank, Baninter, collapsed in a spectacular failure tied to long-standing political corruption. However, no evidence has ever linked Mejia to any corruption nor was he ever taken to court. Actually, it was later proved by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund that the bank was fraudulently caused to fail − something for which its President and CEO Ramón Báez Figueroa was years later found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
During his term, Mejía attempted to spread government resources and services to thousands of smaller, rural communities scattered around the country instead of the traditional efforts to concentrate on big cities (where most voters live). He established the country's first social security type retirement system, and created a fixed advanced corporate tax of 1.5% to aid in government revenue collection.
His administration was packed with corruption and cronyism and also was not able to achieve the economic success and stability of his predecessor.
In March 2004, the Haiti Commission of Inquiry, headed by former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, published its findings : "Noting that 200 US special forces had travelled to the Dominican Republic for “military exercises” in February 2003, the commission accused the US of arming and training Haitian rebels there. With permission from the Dominican president, Hipólito Mejía, US forces trained near the border, in an area used by former soldiers of the disbanded Haitian army to launch attacks on Haitian state property." In the 2004 presidential election, he was defeated by Leonel Fernández, when he ran for re-election for a second term.
By the time Mejía left office, the Dominican Republic was undergoing a major economic crisis.
Mejía again contested the 2012 presidential election, losing to Danilo Medina, his 2000 election opponent.
See also
In Spanish: Hipólito Mejía para niños
