His enigmatic, secretive personality was inherited from the Trujillo era, as well as his desire to perpetuate himself in power through dubious elections and state terrorism, and he was considered to be a caudillo.

[4][5] Balaguer was born on 1 September 1906[6] in Navarrete, later named Villa Bisonó in the Santiago Province in the northwestern corner of the Dominican Republic.

[7] From a very early age, Balaguer felt an attraction to literature, composing verses that were published in local magazines even when he was very young.

[17] As a youth, Balaguer wrote of the awe with which he was struck by his father's fellow countryman, the Harvard graduate and political leader from Puerto Rico, Pedro Albizu.

Despite the profound differences regarding their ethical and world visions, Albizu's fiery and charismatic rhetoric captured Balaguer's imagination and his recollection of this occasion was a harbinger of his passion for politics and intellectual debate.

Three years later, when pressure from the Organization of American States (OAS) convinced Rafael that it was inappropriate to have a member of his family as president, Trujillo forced his brother to resign, and Balaguer succeeded to the post.

[citation needed] At the same time, Ramfis' reforms went too far for the hard-line trujillistas led by his own uncles, Héctor and José Arismendi Trujillo.

As the OAS continued economic sanctions imposed for Trujillo's attempted murder of Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt, Ramfis warned that the country could descend into civil war between left and right.

Ramfis resigned and went into exile on November 17 and rumours circulated that Air Force general Fernando Arturo Sánchez Otero would support pro-Castro revolutionaries.

[19][20] The Union Civica Nacional (UCN) called a national strike and demanded the formation of a provisional government under their leader, Viriato Fiallo, with elections to be delayed until 1964.

Balaguer seized his chance once he had the backing of the United States government, and returned to the Dominican Republic with the purpose of destroying the popular groups that had participated in the rebellions of 1965.

[23] He formed the Reformist Party and entered the presidential race against Bosch, campaigning as a moderate conservative advocating gradual and orderly reforms.

He quickly gained the support of the establishment and easily defeated Bosch, who ran a somewhat muted campaign out of fear of military retribution.

[citation needed] Balaguer found a nation severely beaten by decades of turbulence, with few short times of peace, and virtually ignorant of democracy and human rights.

He sought to pacify the enmities surviving from the Trujillo regime and from the 1965 civil war, but political murders continued to be frequent during his administration.

Political opponents were jailed and sometimes killed[25] (by one estimate, 3,000 people with center-left leanings were murdered[24]), and opposition newspapers were occasionally seized.

[25] When he left office that year, it marked the first time in the Dominican Republic's history that an incumbent president peacefully surrendered power to an elected member of the opposition.

Balaguer ran again in the 1986 elections, and took advantage of a split in the PRD and an unpopular austerity program to win the presidency again after an eight-year absence.

For the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing in the Americas and the visit of Pope John Paul II, Balaguer spent millions on a restoration of parts of historic, colonial Santo Domingo, and on sprucing up the parts of the city to be transversed by the pope, including the construction of a grand new avenue lined with modern housing blocks.

Completed in 1992, the Columbus Lighthouse was designed to beam the image of a Christian cross into the night sky and to be visible for tens of miles.

An investigation later revealed that the electoral board did not know the total number of registered voters, and the voting lists distributed at polling stations did not match those given to the parties.

Balaguer then threw his support to the Dominican Liberation Party's Leonel Fernández in an unusual coalition with Bosch, his political foe of over 30 years.

Although by this time he could not walk without assistance, he nonetheless plunged into the campaign, well aware that his large reservoir of supporters could mean the difference in the election.

Jimmy Carter said "President Balaguer has set an example for all leaders in this nation in changing his own country and his own people away from a former totalitarian government to one of increasingly pure democracy."