Dominican Revolutionary Party

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Dominican Republic
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The Dominican Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, or PRD) is one of the main political parties of the Dominican Republic, currently the second most powerful party. It has a moderate left-wing, social democratic in name position. The party's distinctive color is white.

The party was founded in 1939 by Dominican exiles in Havana, Cuba. It was then established in the Dominican Republic in 1961.

It won the national presidential elections in 1962 (Juan Bosch, who was soon deposed in a military coup and later left the party), 1978 (Antonio Guzmán), 1982 (Salvador Jorge Blanco) and 2000 (Hipólito Mejía).

At the legislative elections, on the 16th of May 2002, the party won 41.9% of the popular vote and 73 out of 150 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 29 out of 31 seats in the Senate of the Dominican Republic. Its candidate at the presidential election on the 16th of May 2004, Rafael Hipólito Mejía Domínguez, won 33.6% of the vote, failing to win a second term.

In the 16 May 2006 legislative elections, the party formed together with its traditional opponent, the Social Christian Reformist Party, and others the Grand National Alliance, that won only 82 out of 178 deputies and 10 out of 32 senators. The Dominican Revolutionary Party led the alliance, however, winning about 60 seats in the chamber of deputies and 6 in the Senate.