Jacobo Majluta

In 1987, Majluta was expelled from the PRD as Peña Gómez reasserted his influence, but an electoral court ruled the move illegal. In 1989, he left to form his own Independent Revolutionary Party (PRI), an organization geared specifically towards his own electoral aspirations. The PRI never gained genuine popular support, but the 7 per cent it won in the 1990 election was enough to undermine Peña Gómez's chances.

After Guzmán's suicide, Majluta hoped to win the PRD's presidential nomination, but lost out to Salvador Jorge Blanco. When Jorge Blanco won the 1982 elections, Majluta became president of the senate, using his position to side with the opposition and block his rival's policy program. As Jorge Blanco's administration gradually slid into bankruptcy and scandal, Majluta again aimed for the PRD's nomination. This time, however, he faced the formidable José Francisco Peña Gómez, and open war broke out between the two men's factions. After several rival supporters were killed in shoot- outs, Majluta finally grabbed the nomination for 1986. Despite his considerable political skills, Majluta lost in the elections that year to Joaquín Balaguer, the old Caudillo of Dominican politics. Balaguer defeated Majluta by a narrow margin to return to the presidency at the age of 80. The brutal in-fighting which had won Majluta the PRD ticket had also alienated a large section of the party, and many of the PRD faithful voted against their own candidate.

Born in 1934 into a merchant family of Lebanese origin, Majluta studied finance at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo before working as an accountant in the banking and state sectors. He married Ana Elisa Villanueva on April 17, 1962. The couple had one daughter, Consuelo Elena.

Majluta joined the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) in 1961, in the wake of the dictator Leonidas Trujillo's assassination, and rose quickly, becoming the youngest minister in Juan Bosch's short-lived government of 1963. He was Minister of Finance. When it was overthrown by a military coup later that year, Majluta went into exile, returning to rebuild his political career and winning the PRD's vice-presidential nomination for the 1978 elections.

Jacobo Majluta Azar (9 October 1934 – 2 March 1996) was Vice President of the Dominican Republic from 16 August 1978 to 4 July 1982. He was one of the generations of politicians in the Dominican Republic whose ambition was continually thwarted by the country's labyrinthine power struggles and sectarianism.