Biographies

Biography of Dr. Leonel Fernandez PRESIDENT OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Dr. Leonel Fernandez, constitutional president of the Dominican Republic, is the president of the Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana (Dominican Liberation Party) or PLD, and honorary president of the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) and Fundacion Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE). President Fernandez is member of various international councils and institutions, such as the Circle of Montevideo (since 1996); Council of Freely Elected Heads of Government, of The Carter Center (since 1997); Foreign Affairs en Español (since 2000), Inter-American Dialogue (since 2001) and the Club de Madrid (since 2001). Likewise, since 2000, he is the president of the United States-Caribbean Executives Club, organized and sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, and since 2002 serves as the president of the Asociacion de la Naciones Unidas de la Republica Dominicana (the Association of the United Nations of the Dominican Republic). He has been awarded honorary degrees for his contributions to political sciences, from several highly regarded universities: Sorbonne University, in 1999; Harvard University, in 1999; Pedro Henriquez Ureña National University, in 2000; Seton Hall University, in New Jersey, in 2000; State University of Santiago, Chile, in 2002; Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, in 2004; Nova Southeastern University, Florida, on April 2, 2005; University of Massachusetts, Boston, in June 2005; and lastly, State University of Panama, on July 28, 2005. Leonel Fernandez was born on December 26, 1953, in Santo Domingo, son of Jose Antonio Fernandez Collado and Yolanda Reyna Romero. He is married to Dr. Margarita Cedeño de Fernandez and has three children, Nicole, Omar y Yolanda America. As a child he relocated with his family to New York City, where he attended primary and secondary school. Upon his return to the country, he enrolled at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD). During that time, Dr. Fernandez became interested in the most progressive ideas that made their way into public debate and that early on will motivate him to study the work of whom would become his mentor and teacher: Professor Juan Bosch. Later, Dr. Fernandez would accompany Professor Bosch and the legion of Dominicans that founded, in 1973, the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). During his early university years, he joined the strong student movement of the 70’s, and became the secretary general of the Student Association of the UASD Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences, after being an active participant of the protest rallies of the time. In 1978, Leonel Fernandez received the degree of Doctor de Derecho (Jurist Doctor) with honors, and was granted the J. Humberto Doucudray Award, for being the top student of his class. His thesis, “El Delito de Opinion Publica” (The Offense of Public Opinion), enriched the national bibliography in this complex and original subject. Other books written by Dr. Fernandez are: Los Estados Unidos en el Caribe: De la Guerra Fria al Plan Reagan (The United States in the Caribbean: From the Cold War to the Reagan Plan) and Raices de un Poder Usurpado (Roots of an Usurped Power). Additionally, he has collaborated with various national and foreign newspapers with topics related to communications, culture, history and law. His increasing incidence in intellectual circles through conferences, journalistic work and debates, went along with a progressive ascent in his political party, leading him to serve in positions of great political responsibility, and to become a member of the Central Committee, in 1985, and the Political Committee, in 1990. Within the PLD, he has functioned as the Secretary of International Affairs and the Press, and was the director of the magazine Politica, Teoria y Accion (Politics, Theory and Action). An avid reader, Dr. Fernandez is recognized as one of most brilliant academicians and professionals of his generation. He has earned prestige, due to his solid educational background, his great gift as an eloquent public speaker, with good command of English and French. In academia, he has excelled as a professor of sociology of communication, right of the press and international relations, at the UASD and at the Latin-American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO).   His political and personal trajectory led Dr. Fernandez to be selected as the PLD candidate for the Vice-presidency of the Republic in 1994, with Professor Juan Bosch running for president on the same electoral ballot. Later, the members of his political party elected him, by an overwhelming majority, as their presidential candidate for the 1996 elections. After a vibrant political campaign, he won the presidential elections and became the first Head of State to come out of the PLD, and one of the youngest presidents in Latin-America. Since he assumed the leadership of the national destiny, on August 16, 1996, Dr. Fernandez undertook a dynamic and aggressive foreign policy that rescued the Dominican Republic from its traditional isolation and placed it in the center of the regional integration processes, opening of the markets and globalization. President Fernandez actively participated in international forums, such as the General Assembly of the United Nations, Ibero-American and Central American Summits of Heads of State and Government, and the Summit of the Americas. He made official visits to sister countries, among which is worth emphasizing the first official visit by a Dominican president to Europe (France and Italy, 1999), Japan and Singapore (2000), and the first official visit of a Dominican Head of State, after the Trujillo era, to his neighboring country, Haiti. President Fernandez reinforced Dominican relations with the countries of CARICOM and Central America, and integrated the nation to the Rio Group, and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of State (ACP), of which he was elected president for 2000. Under his leadership was created the Free Trade Agreement with the countries of CARICOM and Central America. Internally, President Fernandez reoriented public investment towards social spending, favoring education and public health. Convinced that the development of information and communications technology represents the most powerful engine for the progress of a modern nation, Dr. Fernandez dedicated special efforts to equip every public high school in the country with computer laboratories. He instituted students merit-based grants, awarded monthly across the nation; promoted a reading culture through competitions named Reading Olympics and established the Feria Internacional de Libro de Santo Domingo (International Book Fair of Santo Domingo). In the economy, the administration of Leonel Fernandez initiated programs for the creation of jobs, providing financial support to micro, small and medium companies, building new industrial free zones, and creating an active strategy to acquire foreign capital through one of his initiatives, the Office of Investment Promotion. The Parque Cibernetico (Cyber Park), a free zone of advanced technology, was founded under his direction, along with the Instituto Tecnologico de las Americas (Technological Institute of the Americas). During the four years of his administration, the Dominican Republic displayed an admirable macroeconomic performance and became one of the countries in the world with the highest rate of growth, with an annual average of almost 8%. This set of components of the extraordinary economic development of the country during the administration of Dr. Fernandez, won him the alias: “Dominican miracle”. The government of President Fernandez has implemented a program of reform and institutional modernization of the State. The governmental offices were equipped with computers. Bases were established for the regulation of civil services and administrative careers. Public services were improved and made more expeditious and transparent. Additionally, the administration of Dr. Fernandez was able to straighten and bring order to the traditionally chaotic and inefficient urban transportation system, as well as provide valuable works to the urban and provincial road structure. His initiative of creating a National Dialogue that included the participation of all sectors of the country, not only allowed a participative search for solutions to the main challenges that the Dominican Republic faces, and created an agenda with consensus for the future of the nation, but it was also observed attentively by other nations interested in promoting new democratic ways of participation.  In conclusion, the administration of Dr. Leonel Fernandez has been recognized, nationally and internationally, for the strict respect of the public liberties and human rights, as well as for the remarkable impulse in economic growth with macroeconomic stability and in the democratic institution of the Dominican Republic The most important speeches pronounced by Dr. Fernandez during his presidential campaign and his administration are bound in volumes Discursos I y II (Speeches I and II), Temas de Campaña I y II (Campaign Topics I and II), Republica Dominicana Hacia el Nuevo Siglo (Dominican Republic Towards the New Century), “Ningun Gobierno Habia Hecho Tanto” (No other Government Had Done So Much), La Globalization y la Republica Dominicana (Globalization and the Dominican Republic), Hablando la Gente se Entiende (People Understand Each Other by Talking), and Leonel: Vision de Futuro (Leonel: Vision of the Future). After the end of his first presidential term, in 2000, Dr. Fernandez continued his contribution to the development of the Dominican Republic and the Latin-American region as the President of the Fundacion Global Democracia y Desarrollo, a non-profit organization, which he founded with the purpose of conducting vital studies relevant to the country and its international context, creating strategic innovative proposals, designing public policy, elevating the quality of national debate and promoting the preparation of national human resources. The Foundation conducts research and holds conferences, seminars, workshops, and training in democratic institutionality and Constitutional State; economic development; social and educational development; environment and natural resources; science and technology; public opinion and mass media; globalization, regional integration and foregin relations. In January 2002, Dr. Leonel Fernandez was selected, almost unanimously, President of the Dominican Liberation Party. Later, in the 2004 presidential elections, he won the presidency of the country once again and since August 16 of that year, he took the oath as Constitutional President of the Dominican Republic. Leonel Fernández Official Page