HIPóLITO MEJíA

'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.

Contents

Early life

Presidency

Early life

Mejia received a degree in agricultural science at the Loyola Polytechnic Institute in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic, graduating in 1962. Two years later, he completed a related certificate program at North Carolina State University in the United States.
At age twenty-four, 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, Mejia 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.

Presidency

Running for president as the candidate of the nominally socialist 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 49.9% 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.
Mejia was lauded as a gregarious, folksy leader, well known for his frequent use of rural expressions during candid, unscripted press briefings. However, widespread mismanagement under his watch, combined with the post-9/11 economic slump and excessive borrowing quickly overwhelmed his presidency.
During Mejía's term, the economy shrank, poverty and administrative corruption 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Willing, though they were later retracted at about the same time as troops from many other Latin American nations were withdrawn.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 had been long standing, with presidential administrations from all major parties and powerful military figures involved. Though required by law to only guarantee individual deposits of up to $500,000 Dominican Pesos (about US$21,000 at the time of the bank collapse) placed within the country, 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%.
The Central Bank's stated reason for the bailout of Baninter depositors was the avoidance of a crisis in confidence and an overall collapse in the Dominican banking system, and some members of the wealthiest and most powerful Dominican families involved in the scandal were imprisoned. However, the overall effect of the bank bailout was to reimburse the wealthiest of Dominican depositors, some of whom had received rates of interest as high as 27% annually, at the expense of the majority of poor Dominicans -- the latter whom would be required to pay the cost of the bailout through inflation, currency devaluation, government austerity plans and higher taxes over the coming years.
During his term, Mejía attempted to spread government resources and services to thousands of smaller, rural communities scattered around the country instead of the traditional efforts to concentrate on big cities (where most voters live). He established the country's first social security type retirement system, and created a fixed 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 stabilizing the economy and reducing inflation.
Mejía was a very controversial President. He often used language unbecoming of a statesman and made vulgar references, including one regarding the size of his genitals, during interviews and speeches aired live on national television. When asked by a reporter why the price of groceries, citing eggs in particular, had increased 200% in a matter of weeks, Mejia replied: "Do you know how hard it is to lay an egg? Why don't you go lay an egg and then tell me how much it should cost?" During a summit of Latin American presidents in the Dominican Republic, Mejia borrowed a scooter from a child standing outside of the resort complex and rode it into the conference building, speeding past his stunned international guests.
There were also certain inconsistencies in statements made that did not reflect the actions he was taking. For example, early on he stated that he would not be running for a second term, but closer to election time he said he would in fact be running, and proceeded to berate the journalists that questioned him is regards to his earlier statements. Mejía would many times refer to political opponents in a derogatory manner, going as far as calling into question the sexual preference of his main opponent Leonel Fernández.
Also its well known that the years Hipólito was president (2000-2004) could be well considered the worst a country has been ran, not just in Dominican Republic but possibly the worst in the entire Caribbean, hes also been called many times a farmer, by the majority of the nation(everyone but him),as well as very well being one of the dumbest presidents in the history of the entire americas surpassed only by George W Bush.