Dominicans vote in race tipped to favour incumbent
|
| Published on Saturday, May 17, 2008 |
Email To Friend Print Version |
By Tom Brown
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters): Dominicans voted on Friday in an election marked by sporadic violence as President Leonel Fernandez looked set to win a third term in the Caribbean country.
Polls opened at 6 a.m. after a bitter campaign in which opposition leaders blamed Fernandez and his centrist Dominican Liberation Party for recent price increases and accused him of buying votes with government money.
 |
| Dominican President Leonel Fernandez delivers a speech after voting at a polling station during the presidential elections. AFP PHOTO |
Fernandez, 54, who was president from 1996 to 2000 and won office again in 2004, needs at least 50 percent of the votes to avoid a runoff.
Polls have consistently shown the lawyer and academic winning re-election outright. But opposition charges that opinion surveys were bankrolled by the government seem to have kept hopes alive for many supporters of his main opponent, Miguel Vargas Maldonado.
At least eight people, including two ruling party officials, suffered gunshot wounds in politically-motivated violence between Thursday night and Friday morning.
In the rural town of Bonao, 52 miles (83 km) north of the capital, witnesses said people fled a voting station in panic when a congressman who represents Vargas' center-left Dominican Revolutionary Party shot Candido Caba, a local Dominican Liberation Party leader.
Three other people, including a former congressman, were shot and killed in a clash between supporters of Fernandez and of Vargas on Wednesday night in Villa Vasquez, about 125 miles (200 km) northwest of the capital, authorities said.
At least some of the violence was fueled by alleged voting irregularities and claims that poor people were being tricked into selling their voter registration cards.
"They're preying on people's poverty," said Sonia Pierre, a Haitian-Dominican activist who said the practice was especially rampant in the scrap-wood shanties or "bateys" where many Dominicans of Haitian descent live.
"We're the poorest community among the poor," said Pierre.
There were mixed reports about turnout but Julio Cesar Castanos, president of the national electoral tribunal, said the voting had been "massive" and largely peaceful.
Just under 6 million of the Dominican Republic's 9 million people are registered to vote and polls close at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). First official results are expected about three hours afterward.
The Dominican Republic is far wealthier than Haiti, its poor neighbor on the island of Hispaniola. But many Dominicans struggle to satisfy basic needs despite a tourism and real estate boom and economic growth that have made the country the envy of much of the Caribbean.
Fernandez, who pulled the country out of an economic crisis triggered by the collapse of a leading bank in 2003, has vowed to come up with a "social pact" to address poverty and expand government programs if he wins re-election.
But grappling with fallout from the stumbling U.S. economy and surging global oil, gas and food prices could soon take precedence. One big challenge will be financing energy subsidies based on crude oil prices of $80 a barrel, given that oil now goes for more than $120 a barrel.
Foreign investment is up and unemployment down, but many Dominicans say they have not felt the benefits.
Fernandez, who grew up in New York City, has been criticized for pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into building an underground transit system in Santo Domingo, a project aimed at easing traffic congestion. | | | | Reads : 441 | | | |
|
|
