Emerging in the early 1960s from three decades of brutal dictatorship under the regime of Rafael Trujillo, it took another 30 years before the Dominican Republic threw off a legacy of US occupation, repressive rule and ballot-rigging and became a recognisable democracy. While that alone did not solve all of the country’s problems, the gradually increasing responsiveness of the country’s political system to ongoing social grievances has nevertheless underpinned the economic stability that investors crave.
About five million Dominicans are eligible to vote, from a total population of roughly six million over the age of 18, with much of the apparent discrepancy accounted for by the large number of unregistered Haitian immigrants resident in the country.
