Modern Democracy (1961–present)

After Trujillo's death, a turbulent transition period began. In 1962, Juan Bosch became president in the first free election — an intellectual and democrat who was overthrown by the military after only seven months. In 1965, the USA intervened with 42,000 soldiers (Operation Power Pack) to prevent a "second Cuban revolution" — a trauma that remains present in Dominican memory to this day.

From 1966 to 1996, two political figures dominated the country: Joaquín Balaguer (conservative, visually impaired, authoritarian — he was Trujillo's last puppet president and ruled himself for 22 years in various periods) and Juan Bosch and his protégé Leonel Fernández. It was only from the 2000s that democracy truly stabilized.

Economic Boom

Since the 1990s, the Dominican Republic has developed into the largest economy in the Caribbean and Central America. The driving force: tourism (Punta Cana was systematically developed from the 1980s), free trade zones (textiles, tobacco, medical technology), remittances from the Dominican diaspora in the USA (over 2 million Dominicans live in the USA, especially in New York), and mining (gold, nickel).

Despite the growth, social inequality remains enormous: While luxury resorts flourish in Punta Cana, Haitians and Dominicans live in bitter poverty in the Bateyes (former sugarcane worker settlements). The gap between the tourist and the real country is particularly drastic in the Dominican Republic.

The Relationship with Haiti

The relationship with the western neighbor remains the country's most sensitive issue. An estimated 500,000–1,000,000 Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, many without papers and under precarious conditions. A controversial 2013 constitutional court ruling retroactively stripped citizenship from tens of thousands of children born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents — a decision internationally criticized as racist. The issue is highly political and emotionally charged.