Dominicans vote in race seen favoring incumbent

SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - Dominicans vote in a presidential election on Friday in which incumbent Leonel Fernandez is heavily favored to win a third term at the helm of the Caribbean country.

The balloting caps a rancorous campaign in which opposition leaders have blamed Fernandez and his centrist Dominican Liberation Party for soaring price increases and accused him of dipping into government coffers to buy support.

Fernandez, 54, who was first president from 1996 to 2000 and won office again in 2004, needs to win at least 50 percent of the votes to avoid a runoff.

Polls have consistently shown the lawyer and academic winning easily. But opposition charges that opinion surveys were largely bankrolled by the government seem to have kept hopes alive for many supporters of his main opponent, Miguel Vargas Maldonado.

The run-up to election day was marred by violence when three people, including a former congressman, were shot and killed in a clash between Fernandez and Vargas supporters on Wednesday night, hours before the formal end to campaigning.

The race had been otherwise free of violence, however, and a heavy turnout was expected when polls opened at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT). Just under 6 million of the Dominican Republic's 9 million people are registered to vote.

Polls close at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) and the first results are expected shortly afterward.

The Dominican Republic is far wealthier than Haiti, its impoverished 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 priority over everything else. One big near-term 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 of Fernandez's leadership and infrastructure projects in their pocketbooks.

He grew up in New York City and has been criticized for pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into building an underground transit system in Santo Domingo, a pet project aimed at easing congestion in the traffic-choked capital.

"I'm very disappointed in this government," said Belissa Ortiz, who works in a seaside hotel in downtown Santo Domingo and said Fernandez's vision of his country was too far ahead of the often grim realities on the ground.

"I see people who don't have work to live or eat but now we have a metro to jump on."

(Additional reporting by Manuel Jimenez; Editing by Patricia Zengerle)