Chamber:
	Cámara de Diputados
Dates of elections / renewal (from/to):
	16 May 1994
Purpose of elections:
	Elections were held for all the seats in Parliament on the normal expiry of the members’ term of office.
Background and outcome of elections:
	The 1994 congressional elections were held simultaneously with those for President of the Republic and representatives of municipalities. The main contestants for the presidency were the incumbent, Mr. Joaquin Balaguer Ricardo of the right-wing Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC), and Mr. José Francisco Pena Gomez of the centre-left Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). The latter had previously opposed Mr. Balaguer, aged 87, in the 1990 presidential race. The violent campaign was peppered by personal accusations and insults between the candidates rather than debate on policy, Mr. Pena Gomez being caricatured as a puppet of big powers and attacked on racial grounds for his Haitian background by the official pro-Balaguer media. The challenger countered by accusing the President of using public funds for electoral purposes. Pre-election polls favoured Mr. Pena Gomez. Polling day was monitored by foreign observers, who expressed deep concern over the procedures used, especially the discrepancies in voters’ lists used at polling stations compared with those which had earlier been made official for the same constituency. The PRD charged a “vast fraud”, claiming that thousands of its supporters had been left off the registers, and demanded that the polls be annulled. The Central Electoral Board (JCE) was slow in announcing the final voting results for both the presidency and Congress. Eventually, on 2 August, Mr. Balaguer was declared re-elected by a narrow margin over Mr. Pena whereas the PRD came out ahead in the Chamber of Deputies. Meanwhile, the different political parties reached an agreement – the pact for Democracy – signed on 10 August according to which the presidential term which would start on 16 August 1994 would be limited to end on 27 February 1996, whereas the newly elected Parliament would maintain its mandate until 16 August 1998. On 14 August, however, Congress, sitting as a special constitutional assembly, approved an amendment that extended the presidential term for a further six months; it also endorsed a constitutional provision that barred a President from serving consecutive terms. On 16 August, Mr. Balaguer was inaugurated.

STATISTICS

Round no 1: Distribution of seats
Political Group	Total
Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD)	57
Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC)	50
Dominican Liberation Party (PLD)	13

Distribution of seats according to sex:
Men:	106
Women:	14