DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - Quick Facts

The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, won independence from Spanish colonial rule in 1865. The country's history since then has been marked by cycles of political unrest and authoritarian rule, including the repressive dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who held power from 1930 until his assassination in 1961.

The Dominican Republic has functioned under an open and free electoral system since shortly after Trujillo's death, when the Organization of American States sent a technical advisor to help the country construct a modern electoral system. All citizens 18 years of age and older are eligible to vote.

The United States and the Dominican Republic share a long history of involvement that continues today. American troops occupied the country for eight years beginning in 1916, following a period of unrest, and again in 1965, after democratically elected president Juan Bosch was deposed by a military junta. Today, 765,000 Dominicans live in the United States, compared with nearly 9 million who live on the island. Dominican citizens living outside the Dominican Republic, in the United States and elsewhere, send home an estimated $2 billion a year in family remittances.

Dominican citizens vote in U.S. elections as well as in elections in the Dominican Republic. In the past, Dominicans were known to fly home to vote. But in the presidential election of May 2004, registered expatriate Dominican voters -- 52,000 of whom live in the United States and Spain -- were allowed to cast their ballots from abroad for the first time. And recent economic downturns resulted in one of the largest voter turnouts in recent history, with more than 70 percent of 8.8 million registered voters casting a ballot. Leonel Fernandez, who had previously served a single term as president, from 1996 to 2000, defeated incumbent Rafael Hipolito Mejia.

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