The 19 May 2024 election reported the highest abstention of voters in the entire history of the Dominican Republic. The abstention at 45.84% was even higher than the 44.71% abstention rate of the 5 July 2020 presidential election that happened smack in the Covid-19 epidemic. Previous to that year, abstention fluctuated around or under 30%.
Abstention in the municipal election of 18 February 2024 was 63.5%, but municipal elections traditionally have had a higher abstention.
Mariasela Alvarez hosted a panel of electoral experts to try to explain what happened. Among the reasons mentioned was that most trusted polls showed that President Luis Abinader was 30 points in the lead and had a high approval rate. Many people just didn’t bother to go to vote. In the Dominican Republic, the larger rejection rate of a presidential candidate is what has traditionally driven the most people to go to vote.
Likewise, sociologist Candido Simo explained as part of the Esta Noche con Mariasela TV panel, that the high abstention rate can be explained given that the recently increased geographic mobility of the Dominican population. Hundreds of thousands of Dominicans who lived in the capital city have relocated to the provinces, primarily to the Punta Cana area. And these Dominicans have not notified the JCE of their new place of residence. In the Dominican Republic, you are assigned to vote near to your official place of residence. In the past 8 years, the floating population has grown – with thousands relocated also from or to San Cristobal, La Romana, La Altagracia provinces, among others.
Rosario Espinal also attributes the high abstention also to the divide within the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). She says this divide has most likely discouraged many of the people who had voted in past elections for the PLD from going to the polls.
Leidy Blanco of Participación Ciudadano says another reason could be found in the disaffection of Dominicans with politics that she says persists with proposals by politicians not being of sufficient interest to the voters.
The historical abstention in presidential elections has been:
2000: 24%
2004: 27.16%
2008: 28.56%
2012: 29.85%
2016: 30.40%
2020: 44.71%
2024: 45.84%
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Esta Noche con Mariasela
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Diario Libre
22 May 2024