Hipólito Mejía
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Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez (born February 22 1941, in Gurabo Santiago Province) was President of the Dominican Republic from August 16 2000 to August 16 2004.
Mejía studied agricultural engineering at the Loyola Polytechnic Institute in San Cristobal, graduating in 1962. Two years later, he attended special programs at North Carolina State University in the United States.
At twenty-four years of age, he was appointed director and undersecretary of the national Tobacco Institute. In 1978, has 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, Mejía 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, and was defeated after controversial vote counting.
Running for president as the candidate of the nominally socialst Dominican Revolutionary Party on a program to increase health, education, and social security services through tax hikes, he was elected on May 16 2000 with a 49.9% share of the vote. His main opponents, Danilo Medina and former president Joaquín Balaguer, received 24.9% and 24.6%, respectively. A runoff was scheduled between Medina and Mejía, but Medina withdrew, and Mejía took office on 16 August of that year.
During Mejía's term, the economy shrank, poverty increased, and a sharp increase in the external debt was created. Also during this period, small numbers of Dominican troops were sent to Iraq as part of the Coalition of the Willing, though they were later retracted at about the same time as troops from many other Latin American nations were withdrawn.
Most notably, Mejia's term saw the collapse of Baninter, the country's second largest privately held commercial bank, in a US$2.2B banking fraud and government corruption scandal. The corruption was long standing, with previous presidential administrations of various parties having been involved. Though required by law to only guarantee limited individual deposits within the country in the national currency, the Peso, the Mejía-controlled Dominican Central Bank opted to guarantee all $2.2B in unbacked Baninter deposits, regardless of amount, regardless of whether deposits were in Pesos or United States Dollars and regardless of whether the deposits were held in the Dominican Republic or in Baninter's branches in the Cayman Islands and Panama. The subsequent fiscal shortfall was equal to 12%-15% of GDP, resulting in massive inflation (42%) and the devaluation of the Peso by over 50%.
During Mejia's term, some members of the most powerful and richest Dominican families involved in this scandal were imprisoned.
President Mejía is also known for concentrating government resources in thousands of small services scattered around the country instead of the common use to concentrate on big cities. Mejía started the social security system and the contributions towards people's retirements. Mejía also established a fix advanced corporate tax of 1.5% to aid in government revenue collection.
Despite a late announced plan to give away tens of thousands of small motorcycles to the electorate were he to be reelected, Mejía was defeated in the presidential elections of May 16, 2004, by former President Leonel Fernández, who campaigned on a platform of stabilising the economy and reducing inflation.
Mejía has been married to Rosa Gómez for over forty years, and has four children.
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