Constitution: 28 November 1966
Legal system: based on French civil codes
National holiday: Independence Day, 27 February (1844)
Executive branch: president, vice president, Cabinet
Legislative branch: bicameral National Congress (Congreso Nacional) consists of an upper chamber or Senate (Senado) and lower chamber or Chamber of Deputies (Camara de Diputados)
Judicial branch: Supreme Court (Corte Suprema)
Leaders:
Chief of State and Head of Government—President Joaquin BALAGUER
Ricardo (since 16 August 1986); Vice President Carlos A. MORALES Troncoso
(since 16 August 1986)
Political parties and leaders:
Major parties—Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC),
Joaquin Balaguer Ricardo; Dominican Revolutionary
Party (PRD), which fractured in May 1989 with the understanding that
leading rivals Jacobo Majluta and Jose Francisco
Pena Gomez would run separately for president at the head of the
Independent Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Social Democratic
Institutional Bloc (BIS), respectively, and try to reconstitute the
PRD after the election; Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), Juan Bosch
Gavino;
Minor parties—National Veterans and Civilian Party (PNVC),
Juan Rene Beauchanps Javier; The Structure (LE), Andres Van Der Horst;
Democratic Quisqueyan Party (PQD), Elias Wessin Chavez;
Constitutional Action Party (PAC), Luis Arzeno
Rodriguez; National Progressive Force (FNP), Marino Vinicio Castillo;
Popular Christian Party (PPC), Rogelio Delgado Bogaert; Dominican
Communist Party (PCD), Narciso Isa Conde; Anti-Imperialist Patriotic
Union (UPA), Ivan Rodriguez; in 1983 several leftist parties,
including the PCD, joined to form the Dominican Leftist Front (FID);
however, they still retain individual party structures