Do we like them?

Do we like Luis Abinader?

Our score: 4 out of 10. A 4: no hate campaign of his own turned up, but both tests come out mixed and the good works we could verify are thin.

Abinader was born in Santo Domingo in 1967 into a political family: his father was finance secretary of the 1965 constitutionalists and later a vice president of the PRD party. He trained as an economist, worked in the family's hotel and tourism group, ran for vice president on the PRD ticket in 2012, then helped found the PRM in 2014. He lost the 2016 race, won in 2020 with 52.5% to end 16 years of PLD rule, and was re-elected in 2024 with over 57%.

His signature fight is migration. In October 2024 he announced plans to deport up to 10,000 Haitians a week, and rights groups, including the UN's human rights chief, pushed back. NPR and AP reporting in February 2025 gathered Haitian migrants' accounts of home raids and mistreatment, and the migration director denied the allegations while saying officials may enter homes in hot pursuit. The government frames it as sovereignty; critics say it hurts people fleeing a collapsing country.

Democracy is the next question. In March 2026 he promulgated Law 13-26, repealing the articles that allowed independent candidacies, so candidacies are reserved for parties and movements. Acento ties it to a Constitutional Court ruling that found the old requirements excessive, and supporters say it fits the party system in the Constitution. In his February address, he defended the independence of prosecutors and the separation of powers, so where you land depends on whether you read the law as tidying the system or closing a door.

On corruption he leans hard on the message. In his February 2026 address he called the fight the “columna vertebral” of his government and said there are “no existen intocables”. He said the Senasa health-insurer irregularities went to prosecutors and the state joined as a civil party to recover the money. He also cited Transparency International to say the country rose from 136th in 2020 to 99th in 2025. That is his own account, and we found no independent fact-checker rating of it.

The newest wrinkle is the US. In May 2026 the Dominican Foreign Ministry announced a non-binding memorandum letting the US send deportees with no criminal record who are in transit, excluding Haitians and unaccompanied minors, with US support. It also agreed to a temporary extension of US aircraft and personnel access to facilities used in counter-narcotics work. It is the first time his government has played receiving transit country for US deportations, and critics worry about transparency and sovereignty.

So would we back him? He is not pushing grievance or conspiracy theories, and his anti-corruption pitch has real substance on paper. But the migration crackdown, a penal code that leaves LGBTQ+ people and women's rights short, and a law narrowing who can run all weigh on the scale. We could not verify much charity or kind acts of his own, so the record is mixed rather than glowing.