No-shows in next election could hurt Abinader’s bid

Santo Domingo.- Around 15% more than the country’s historical abstention did not vote in 2020, a challenge for president Abinader and the PRM for 2024

An X-ray of the numbers of the results of the 2020 presidential elections, which Luis Abinader and the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) won with 52.52%, shows a behavior of abstention that exceeds the country’s historical average.

Historically, abstention in the presidential vote ranges between 28% and 30%, but in 2020, 44.71% of the people registered in the register did not vote.

According to the official results of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), of the 7.5 million registered to vote, in the July 5 elections 4.2 million people voted, which represents 55.29%.

The data reflects a variation between 13% and 15% of voters who could vote in the 2024 elections, if the political-electoral scenario returns to its historical behavior.

Several factors influenced people not to go out to vote in 2020 that might not be present in the 2024 contest:

The elections were held on extraordinary dates, instead of the third Sunday in May: they were held on April 5 and dragged the trauma of the suspension of the municipal elections in February of that year; that in turn generated the wave of protests that colored the final stretch of the last electoral process.