with Elías Wessin y Wessin leader of the Democratic Quisqueya Party but these fell apart and Wessin ultimately supported Balaguer, whom he had tried to overthrow in 1971 and was exiled for it. Balaguer conducted a vigorous campaign which attracted many young voters and old foes. Besides Wessin, he was now also supported by Donald Reid Cabral ex-President of the triumvirate that ruled the country while Balaguer was in exile, Mario Read Vittini, and many communists who had fought him in the past, including Tacito Perdomo. After a bloody riot in 1984 which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, the PRD could no longer attack Balaguer for the dark past of his previous governments which enabled him to get much of the youth vote. Balaguer supporters chanted "vuelve y vuelve!" at the political rallies as their victory chant referring to his possible return to the presidency. The 80-year-old caudillo was attacked due to his blindness during the campaign to which he responded As President I will not be asked to thread needles. Since Majluta's picture would be on four different party's ballots he feared that the less enlightened voters who made up the PRD's core would cast votes for him in all four and thus spoiling the vote. He spent precious time campaigning to educate voters to only cast a vote for him on one ballot. Results President What Majluta so greatly feared came to be when vote counts showed a great number of invalid votes. Balaguer had a lead over him but the number of invalid votes was bigger than that of the margin of victory. Jacobo tried to get the ballots counted since the great majority of these were ballots that had his face marked multiple times on the PRD and Liberal Party tickets and therefore were undeniably cast for him. On 19 May, with 92% of the votes counted, the vote count was halted and guards were placed outside the Central Elections Board and Majluta declared himself the winner despite being behind Balaguer in the tally. After appeals from Salvador Jorge Blanco, the vote counting was resumed on 21 May, only to be stopped again the following day. A month passed and there was still uncertainty over who had really won the election but Balaguer's margin had grown and ended up surpassing the number of invalid votes. Jacobo, faced with the lack of support from