Jacobo Majluta Azar (9 October 1934 – 2 March 1996) was Vice President of the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

from 16 August 1978 to 4 July 1982. He was one of the generations of politicians in the Dominican Republic whose ambition was continually thwarted by the country's

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ine power struggles and sectarianism.

Biography

Born in 1934 into a merchant family of Lebanese origin, Majluta studied finance at the

Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo The Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) (Autonomous University of Santo Domingo) is the public university system in the Dominican Republic with its flagship campus in the Ciudad Universitaria (lit. University City) neighborhood of San ...

before working as an accountant in the banking and state sectors. He married

Ana Elisa Villanueva Ana Elisa Aurora Villanueva Callot (July 28, 1930 – April 5, 1998) was a Dominican politician and children's advocate. She served as First Lady of the Dominican Republic from July 4, 1982, to August 16, 1982, during the brief 43-day presidency ...

on April 17, 1962. The couple had one daughter, Consuelo Elena. Majluta joined the

Dominican Revolutionary Party The Dominican Revolutionary Party ( es, link=no, Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, PRD) is a political party in the Dominican Republic. Traditionally a left-of-centre party and social democratic in nature, the party has shifted since the 2000 ...

(PRD) in 1961, in the wake of the dictator Leonidas Trujillo's assassination, and rose quickly, becoming the youngest minister in Juan Bosch's short-lived government of 1963. He was

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...

. When it was overthrown by a military coup later that year, Majluta went into exile, returning to rebuild his political career and winning the PRD's vice-presidential nomination for the 1978 elections. In power, Majluta was out of sympathy with the PRD's more radical social-democratic wing. As head of CORDE, one of the large state-sector companies, he was also allegedly involved in corruption, although charges were never proven. His real concern, however, was to beat off the challenge of rival caudillos or strongmen within the PRD, and this struggle dominated the rest of his career. After Guzmán's suicide, Majluta hoped to win the PRD's presidential nomination, but lost out to

Salvador Jorge Blanco José Salvador Omar Jorge Blanco (July 5, 1926 – December 26, 2010) was a politician, lawyer and a writer. He was President of the Dominican Republic, from 1982 to 1986. He was a Senator running for the PRD party. He started his political care ...

. When Jorge Blanco won the 1982 elections, Majluta became

president of the senate President of the Senate is a title often given to the presiding officer of a senate. It corresponds to the speaker in some other assemblies. The senate president often ranks high in a jurisdiction's succession for its top executive office: for ex ...

, using his position to side with the opposition and block his rival's policy program. As Jorge Blanco's administration gradually slid into bankruptcy and scandal, Majluta again aimed for the PRD's nomination. This time, however, he faced the formidable

José Francisco Peña Gómez José Francisco Peña Gómez (6 March 1937 – 10 May 1998) was a politician from the Dominican Republic. He was the leader of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), a three-time candidate for president of the Dominican Republic and former Ma ...

, and open war broke out between the two men's factions. After several rival supporters were killed in shoot- outs, Majluta finally grabbed the nomination for 1986. Despite his considerable political skills, Majluta lost in the elections that year to

Joaquín Balaguer Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo (1 September 1906 – 14 July 2002) was a Dominican politician, scholar, writer, and lawyer. He was President of the Dominican Republic serving three non-consecutive terms for that office from 1960 to 1962 ...

, the old Caudillo of Dominican politics. Balaguer defeated Majluta by a narrow margin to return to the presidency at the age of 80. The brutal in-fighting which had won Majluta the PRD ticket had also alienated a large section of the party, and many of the PRD faithful voted against their own candidate. Majluta did not enhance his standing by claiming victory as soon as voting ended and by demanding a rerun of the election. In the end a series of meetings with emissaries from the military and Church forced him to accept defeat.

Post-presidency

In 1987, Majluta was expelled from the PRD as Peña Gómez reasserted his influence, but an electoral court ruled the move illegal. In 1989, he left to form his own

Independent Revolutionary Party The Independent Revolutionary Party (PRI) ( es, Partido Revolucionario Independiente) is a minor political party of the Dominican Republic, without parliamentary representation after the 16 May 2006 election. The PRI was created by Jacobo Majlut ...

(PRI), an organization geared specifically towards his own electoral aspirations. The PRI never gained genuine popular support, but the 7 per cent it won in the 1990 election was enough to undermine Peña Gómez's chances. Ironically, in the weeks before his death, Majluta had sought a rapprochement with his old rival and had even endorsed Peña Gómez's candidature for the forthcoming May elections. It was an uncharacteristic gesture on the part of a hard-nosed, cynical fighter who always valued personal power far higher than party democracy. He died in 1996 in

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough ...

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, mali ...

References

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Majluta Azar, Jacobo 1934 births 1996 deaths Deaths from lung cancer People from Santo Domingo Presidents of the Dominican Republic Vice presidents of the Dominican Republic Finance ministers of the Dominican Republic Members of the Senate of the Dominican Republic Presidents of the Senate of the Dominican Republic Dominican Revolutionary Party politicians Independent Revolutionary Party politicians Presidents of political parties in the Dominican Republic Members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch