Danilo Medina

He is the oldest of eight brothers born to Juan Pablo Medina de los Santos (1918–2019) and Amelia Sánchez Abreu (1931–2004).

Since he was 18 years old he was a student leader, founding the San Juan de la Maguana branch of the Frente Revolucionario Estudiantil Nacionalista at the UASD.

Danilo Medina Sánchez ( : born 10 November 1951) is a Dominican politician who was President of the Dominican Republic from 2012 to 2020.

When Professor Juan Bosch founded the Partido de la Liberación Dominicana in 1973.

Medina joined him.

He has been a member of the Central Committee of the PLD since 1983.

He studied economics at Instituto Tecnológico Santo Domingo (INTEC), and graduated magna cum laude in 1984.

In 1986 election he was elected a deputy in Congress.

In 1987, he married psychologist Cándida Montilla and has three daughters, Sibeli, Vanessa and Ana Paula.

In 1990, Medina was elected member of the Political Committee of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) together with Leonel Fernández and Juan Temístocles Montás.

He was selected by his political organization to be the President of the Chamber of Deputies in the Dominican Republic.

As president of the Chamber of Deputies in the National Congress (1990–94), he was a key figure in congressional negotiations that led to the resolving of the 1994 political impasse.

In that year, a close finish between Joaquín Balaguer and José Francisco Peña Gómez brought about a major conflict, as one side accused the other of fraud.

The conflict was resolved with a pact that instituted separate presidential and congressional elections, the need for a candidate to receive 50%+1 of the vote to win in a first round, and prohibited presidential re-election.

He was President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Republic from 1994 to 1995, and subsequently served as Secretary of State of the Presidency from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2004 to 2006.

Medina previously served as Chief of Staff to the President of the Dominican Republic from 1996 to 1999 and from 2004 to 2006, and is a member of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).

The agreement eventually worked in favor of the PLD, which won the presidential in the 1996 election, with Leonel Fernández defeating José Francisco Peña Gómez in a second round.

Medina is considered the PLD's leading political strategist and negotiator.

As such, he was one of the leaders of the presidential campaign of President Fernández.

He was appointed Secretary of the Presidency in 1996 and was one of the President's closest aides.

In 2000, with Fernández barred from reelection (at the time, Dominican presidents could not immediately succeed themselves), Medina was the presidential candidate of the PLD.

He finished a distant second behind opposition candidate Hipólito Mejía of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), taking only 24.9 percent of the vote to Mejía's 49.87 percent.

However, Medina concluded he had no chance of overcoming Mejía's nearly 25-point first-round lead, especially after third-place finisher Balaguer hinted some of his supporters would vote for the PRD in the runoff.

Medina would have needed nearly all of Balaguer's supporters in order to overcome his massive first-round deficit.

Realizing that he would be lucky to get half of them in the runoff, Medina conceded the presidency to Mejía.

In his concession speech, Medina said that a runoff would not be in the country's best interest.

As President Fernández acceded to a second term in 2004, Medina was once again appointed Secretary of the Presidency (Equivalent to Chief of Staff) and considered second in command on internal corridors of Government.

He resigned from the post on 8 November 2006 in order to launch his bid for the PLD presidential nomination against President Fernández.

After running a campaign under the slogans "Ahora Es" and "Lo Mejor Para Todos" ("Now Is the Time" and "The Best for Everybody") Medina was eventually defeated by President Fernández in the 6 May 2007 PLD internal election to choose the party's candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Since its foundation the PLD had maintained an implicit non re-election policy, but President Fernández changed that allowing him to campaign against Medina from the Presidential Palace and opt for a second consecutive term in power (his third).

In the internal PLD vote Medina obtained 28.45% of the votes against President Fernández' 71.55%.

As a new election approached in 2008, Medina was considered the main competition for President Fernández, as he was considered by some to have complete political control of the ruling party, the PLD.

He won the May 2012 Dominican presidential election, defeating Hipòlito Mejía with 51% of the votes.

On 15 May 2016, Danilo Medina leading a coalition of parties won the 2016 Dominican presidential election, defeating the leader of the opposition and PRM candidate Luis Abinader with 61.8% of the votes, the highest percentage received by a president elected in free elections since 1924 when Horacio Vásquez won the presidency with 69.8% of the ballots—surpassing Juan Bosch's record of 59.5% obtained in 1962, and Leonel Fernández's 57.1% of the votes obtained in 2004.

Medina's second term has been characterized as humane, transparent and goal-driven by its supporters.

With a penchant for performing weekly visits to impoverished rural sections of the country, President Medina finished his second term with a 65% approval rate.

However, during his second term there were attempts to seek a third term which was frustrated after a call from the US Department of State secretary Mike Pompeo.

Medina's family, including two of his brothers, are currently being investigated under allegations of corruption, involving traffic of influence by which they benefited under Medina presidency, obtaining multiple contracts and business with the State.

, the investigation process had entered a new phase following the arrests of two of Medina's brothers.

Medina was born in Arroyo Cano, San Juan Province, in the southwest of the Dominican Republic.