Rafael Francisco Alburquerque de Castro (born June 14, 1940) is a Dominican politician who was Vice President of the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

from August 2004 to August 2012, serving under President

Leonel Fernández Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna () (born 26 December 1953) is a Dominican lawyer, academic, and was the 50th and 52nd President of the Dominican Republic from 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2012. From 2016 until 2020, he was the President of th ...

. Along with Fernández, he was re-elected in May 2008 for a four-year term.tmcnet.com, Dominican president sworn in for 3rd term
Before he became Vice President, he was Secretary of Labour twice between 1991 and 2000 under Presidents

Joaquín Balaguer Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo (1 September 1906 – 14 July 2002) was a Dominican politician, scholar, writer, and lawyer who was the 41st, 45th and 49th president of the Dominican Republic serving three non-consecutive terms from 1960 t ...

and during Fernández’s first term.

Early life and career

Alburquerque was born in

Santo Domingo Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...

on 14 June 1940, the eldest son of Lic. Rafael Alburquerque Zayas-Bazán. He serves as Coordinator of the

Social security Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...

System A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its open system (systems theory), environment, is described by its boundaries, str ...

and the Social Cabinet of the Dominican government . He was chosen by the President Leonel Fernández Reyna as his ballot companion for his second consecutive presidential term, by the

Dominican Liberation Party The Dominican Liberation Party (Spanish: Partido de la Liberación Dominicana, referred to here by its Spanish acronym, the PLD) is a political party in the Dominican Republic. Founded in 1973 by former president Juan Bosch, the party, along ...

(PLD). Alburquerque served as Secretary of Labour and president of the Delegation of the Dominican State to the Conferences of the

International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...

(ILO) from 1991 to 2000. He was also President of the Commission of Technical Cooperation in the Conference of the

ILO The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...

in 1999. From September 2000 to June 2001 he was the Special Representative of the General Director of the ILO for the collaboration with

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

and Member of the Commission of Experts of the ILO since November 2001. Alburquerque is a lawyer with a PhD in Labour Law.

2012 pre-presidential candidacy

A study by a local pollster in January 2011, to the closed question: "Of the following political leaders of the PLD, who is the best candidate for the 2012 elections?" 46.7% said

Danilo Medina Danilo Medina Sánchez (; born 10 November 1951) is a Dominican politician who was President of the Dominican Republic from 2012 to 2020. Medina previously served as Chief of Staff to the President of the Dominican Republic from 1996 to 1999 ...

; 32% Rafael Alburquerque%; 7.4%

Francisco Domínguez Brito Francisco Javier Tadeo Domínguez Brito (born October 28, 1965, in Santiago de los Caballeros, Santiago) is a Dominican lawyer and politician. He has been Minister of Environment and Natural Resources (2016), Minister of Labor (2011), Senator ...

; 6.7% José Tomás Pérez. Alburquerque, Camilo, Segura and Javier García have made public aspirations for the presidential nomination. Absent from the polls is the President of the Republic and former president of the PLD Leonel Fernández since he is constitutionally prohibited from reelection for 2012. On May 22, 2011, he declined his candidacy to support

Books

Alburquerque is the author of several books: * Legislación del Trabajo (1985) * Los Conflictos del Trabajo y su solución en la República Dominicana (1987) * Estudios del derecho del Trabajo (1992), with prologue by

Rafael Caldera Rafael Antonio Caldera Rodríguez ( ; 24 January 1916 – 24 December 2009) was a Venezuelan politician and academician who was the 46th and 51st president of Venezuela from 1969 to 1974 and again from 1994 to 1999, thus becoming the longest se ...

, twice

president of Venezuela The president of Venezuela (), officially known as the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (), is the executive head of state and head of government of Venezuela. The president leads the National Executive of the Venezuelan go ...

* Derecho Administrativo Laboral y Administrativo del Trabajo (1993) * Derecho del Trabajo (Volume I - 1995 y 2003; Volume II - 1997; Volume III - 1999) * Guía de los derechos de los trabajadores (1995, with eight editions) * Los conflictos de las leyes del trabajo en el espacio (1998) * La subordinación jurídica en la era digital (2002).

References

Gabinete de Coordinación de las Políticas Sociales de la República Dominicano
(Spanish)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alburquerque, Rafael 1940 births Living people Politicians from Santo Domingo Alburquerque, Rafael Francisco Dominican Liberation Party politicians Dominican Republic people of Spanish descent White Dominicans 20th-century Dominican Republic politicians 21st-century Dominican Republic politicians