The healthiest and most important political subdivisions in Santo Domingo are the communal governments, and whatever progress has been made in the Republic has been due largely to their initiative. They correspond to the Spanish "municipios" and the French "communes." In Santo Domingo the French name was introduced during Haitian occupation. The various towns constitute the centers of government, their jurisdiction extends over the surrounding rural districts, and the affairs of the whole are administered by a municipal council. The powers of such councils are manifold and far-reaching and their importance has been accentuated by the chronic impotency of the central government to foster public improvements. The councils exercise all the faculties commonly pertaining to city councils elsewhere and have control of education, sanitation, streets and roads in their respective districts. They also act as election boards.
When an outlying hamlet of the rural belt has grown to sufficient size it is erected into a municipal district or canton and accorded a justice of the peace and a cantonal chief and governing board. It remains subject, however, to the municipal council of the commune of which it formed a part until further development warrants its segregation as an independent commune with its own council. The cantons, as well as some of the sections, are also provided with a cemetery and a small church or chapel.
From among their number the municipal councilmen select a president who is regarded as mayor of the commune, though many of the duties elsewhere pertaining to mayors are discharged by an official called the syndic. The councilmen are supposed to be elected for a term of two years, but the oft repeated revolutions have interfered as seriously with their terms of office as with everything else. The average Dominican seems to manifest little interest in his municipal elections; my question as to when the last local election was held would generally be answered with uncertainty: "Last January, no, last April, no, I believe it was in November." After all, the elections have usually been mere ratifications of slates prepared beforehand. In the time of Heureaux the lists of new councilmen were often arranged in the capital and a few days before election remitted to the various towns, even with a designation of the person whom the council was later to choose as its president.