BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- Bodyguards for the leading candidate
 in Tuesday's presidential elections have shot dead two hecklers. The candidate in
 second place is 92 years old and legally blind. And the third-place candidate's
 party has admitted spying on opponents.

 Dominican electoral campaigns are always hard-fought affairs. But this time
 around they are packing an extra dollop of intensity and intrigue because all three
 candidates stand a chance of winning.

 At play is the future of a nation enjoying the fastest-growing economy in Latin
 America, yet so poor that thousands risk drowning each year to sneak into the
 neighboring U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico aboard small boats.

 Polls give the lead to populist rancher Hipolito Mejia, 58, of the center-left
 Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), whose bodyguards killed two men and
 wounded two others in a clash with hecklers at an April 29 rally.

 But the polls predict he will fall short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff
 against either former President Joaquin Balaguer or Danilo Medina of the ruling
 Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).

 Balaguer, 92, all-but-blind and virtually unable to walk, ruled this country for 22 of
 the last 34 years through a blend of repression, corruption, patronage and vote
 fraud, yet remains popular among the poor.

 Running a close third, the colorless Medina, 47, is a longtime aide to President
 Leonel Fernandez and an official in the PLD, a centrist party whose top political
 operative last week admitted to spying on Mejia.

 RUNOFF POLITICS

 Should Medina end up in second place, Balaguer and his Social Christian
 Reformist Party are likely to endorse Medina for the June 30 runoff. Polls show a
 Mejia-Medina runoff would be closely fought .

 But if Balaguer winds up in second, Medina would certainly endorse him -- the
 PRD is a splinter of the PLD, and the bad blood between them is notorious -- and
 virtually assure Balaguer of an eighth term. Balaguer has hinted that if elected he
 might hand power to his vice presidential running mate, businessman Jacinto
 Peynado, referring to him in several speeches as ``President Peinado.

 Medina had hoped to ride the coattails of Fernandez, a U.S. educated lawyer
 credited with a broad series of reforms. Under a law adopted to force Balaguer out
 of power, Fernandez cannot succeed himself.

 Fernandez modernized government agencies, boosted spending on education,
 privatized money-losing state enterprises and attracted billions in foreign
 investments. The economy grew at an average clip of 7.7 percent in the past four
 years -- 8.3 percent in 1999 -- tops in Latin America.

 But Fernandez's botched privatization of the electricity system has left most
 Dominicans seething, facing blackouts for up to 12 hours a day even as their
 monthly bills soared.

 POVERTY, RIOTS

 The 60 percent of Dominicans classified as living in poverty have seen little of the
 benefits from his policies, and several riots over gasoline and other price hikes
 have marred his four years in power.

 Corruption remains widespread, and the PLD is accused of intensifying rather
 than reforming a patronage system in which the ruling party has traditionally
 dished out jobs.

 ``The Fernandez government has done many things well, but it has failed to break
 the basic paternalism of our political system, said Rafael Acevedo, director of the
 polling firm Gallup Dominicana.

 Mejia has vowed to end Fernandez's ``neo-liberal policies, launch major public
 works projects to inject money into the lower classes and reverse the privatization
 of money-losing sugar mills sold off by Fernandez. But his occasional outbursts
 of extravagant rhetoric worry a business class trying to lure more foreign
 investors, increase exports and compete in the world economy.

 Businessmen also recall that the only two PRD presidential terms, from 1978 to
 1986, were marked by corruption and an economic crisis that saw per capita
 GNP drop from $1,250 in 1981 to $760 in 1986.

 `HUNGRY FOR MONEY'

 ``A PRD government could mean a whole new group of people hungry for money
 because they've been out of power for so long, said Santo Domingo clothing shop
 owner Ivan Contreras.

 Medina has attacked Mejia's spending promises as wasteful and promised to
 continue Fernandez's reforms while making sure that more of the benefits trickle
 down to the poor, jobless and farmers.

 But Medina, conscious that he may have to endorse Balaguer in a runoff, has
 avoided criticizing the former president and effectively given him a clear shot at
 the No. 2 position.

 First appointed president in 1960 by dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, Balaguer
 initially appeared to have decided to run again this year only to keep his party
 united and deny Mejia an outright victory. A runoff alliance with Medina would
 assure government jobs for his party faithful. But in his rare campaign
 appearances -- almost carried by aides to the podiums -- Balaguer has struck a
 chord by reminding voters of his record for huge public works projects that created
 tens of thousands of jobs.

 ``There was waste and corruption, for sure, but five people could eat from the job
 that today goes to a single PLD member, said Omar Tomas Benites, a sugar mill
 worker left unemployed when the mill was privatized in 1998.

 It is a yearning that not everyone shares.

 ``This country is still in transition from the authoritarian traditions left by Trujillo to
 a modern system of governance, said one European diplomat. ``These kinds of
 longings for the past cannot help.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald