Caribbean Archive

In a general election earlier this month, voters in the Dominican Republic dealt a stinging defeat to the ruling Dominican Liberation Party, or PLD, which has dominated politics in the country since 2004. Luis Abinader, an economist and businessman who has never held political office, was elected president, and his Modern Revolutionary Party, or PRM, emerged as the largest party in Congress. The vote was initially scheduled to be held in May, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has taken a devastating toll on the Dominican Republic. The country has reported over 57,000 cases of COVID-19, including […]

As the coronavirus pandemic takes a terrible toll across Latin America, with over 3.5 million cases and nearly 150,000 deaths, the region is increasingly facing a financial and humanitarian emergency. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, GDP is forecast to contract by 9.3 percent in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund—the region’s largest economic contraction on record, and far worse than the outlook for African and Asian economies. The United Nations expects the value of South America’s exports to fall by nearly a fifth this year due to shrinking international demand and weaker commodity prices. Foreign investment has also […]