Minerva Josefina Tavárez Mirabal (born 31 August 1956), known as Minou, is a philologist, professor and politician from the Dominican Republic.

She was the presidential nominee of both the Alliance for Democracy and Democratic Choice parties for the 2016 Dominican Republic general election.

Minou is the daughter of Dominican lawyers and activists Manuel Aurelio Tavárez Justo and María Argentina Minerva Mirabal, both founders in 1960 of the clandestine movement 14 June that sought the overthrow of dictator Rafael Trujillo.

[2] Her mother and two aunts were assassinated by the dictatorship in 1960, and her father was murdered by the Triumvirate (three-member junta) that overthrew Juan Bosch’s legitimate government in 1963, becoming an orphan at the age of 7 years.

Tavárez is cousin and foster sister of Jaime David Fernández Mirabal, a former vice-president of the Dominican Republic.