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Political-clientelism and poverty in the Dominican Republic
Real estate news By Dominican Today
14 January 2008, 3:40 PM
In May 2006, after voting in the congressional elections, my family and I went up to visit some relatives up in the mountains just south of Rio San Juan. There we played dominoes and were preparing a sancocho, when my cousin walked in very proudly telling us that she had just gotten RD$500 for voting for the PLD. I was shocked, to say the least, but my relatives went on to tell me that it was not uncommon for all the parties to give out money and other material benefits for votes or joining in a campaign activity. When I asked them whether they cared about the policies of the parties, they ALL responded, “No, they (the parties) are all the same. They come around during elections, and never again. If I can get a few pesos for voting, then that’s enough for me.”
This is, for better or worse, the current state of politics in the DR, and what political parties count on and support in order to maintain the paternalistic politics that has reigned in the DR since 1865 – yes since 1865. What is vote buying? Vote buying, as the anecdote above suggests, is the handing out to voters of cash or minor material goods by political parties in exchange for the recipient’s vote. Political parties tend to target the poor, because the poor, in their precarious economic state, are often more desperate for resources than the middle class. Low income, according to a 2004 study on vote buying conducted by Susan Stokes, is the key factor in vote buying.
Vote buying is a form of political clientelism. Political clientelism is an exchange system based on political subordination in exchange for the discretionary granting of available public resources and services. In other words, political parties/candidates say “support me, and I will give you money, a government job where the pay is high and the work is low; a taxi (pollito); a metro; access to state contracts; or anything else that I can.” The logic of clientelism, in essence, is that the winner will favor those who supported him/her, and those that did not will find a “closed” door when they go knocking for help.
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