SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- The Dominican economy is
                  booming, but the candidate promising to stay the course is struggling going into
                  Tuesday's presidential election against a plain-speaking champion of the poor and
                  an old warhorse strongman.

                  The stumbling campaign of Danilo Medina, hand-picked candidate of outgoing
                  President Leonel Fernandez, reflects the widespread feeling that despite strong
                  economic growth in recent years, all is not well.

                  Polls give a commanding lead to populist Hipolito Mejia of the leftist Dominican
                  Revolutionary Party, although perhaps not enough support for an outright victory
                  Tuesday.

                  Medina, of the centrist Dominican Liberation Party, is fighting for second place
                  with 93-year-old Joaquin Balaguer, a conservative seeking a seventh term as
                  president.

                  If no one wins more than 50 percent of the votes, the top two candidates will
                  meet in a runoff June 30.

                  Fernandez has presided over an almost 40 percent growth in the economy in his
                  four years as president. He's also raised the Caribbean nation's profile, opening
                  the economy to trade and investment, playing host to summits and strengthening
                  ties with the United States.

                  But the Dominican constitution bars presidents from serving consecutive terms,
                  and Medina, a 48-year-old chemical engineer and career technocrat, has failed to
                  capitalize on Fernandez's successes.

                  While signs of growth are everywhere -- a construction boom, new highways,
                  increased trade -- it has yet to benefit the poor. The median per capita income is
                  $2,000 a year, and many Dominicans feel left behind, nostalgic for an era when
                  strong leaders -- such as Balaguer -- offered government jobs and handouts.

                  "I don't know what progress they're talking about. I cannot feed my family," said
                  Julio Cesar Encarnacion, a Mejia supporter and father of two who earns 3,000
                  pesos ($200) a month as a postal worker and lives in a Santo Domingo slum next
                  to the Ozama River.

                  Mejia, whose Revolutionary Party has long enjoyed the strongest following in
                  this nation of 8 million people, is tapping into the public's frustration by
                  promising a greater distribution of wealth.

                  "For rich people, the price of food is not very important because it only
                  represents 2 or 3 percent of the family's budget, but for a poor family, food
                  represents 20 or 30 percent, or more," said Andres Duahajre, executive director
                  of the Economy and Development Foundation, a Dominican think tank.

                  Medina promises future benefits from free-market policies, stressing it is a long
                  process that will take time.

                  "There has been, and still is, a lot of social inequality in this country," Medina
                  said in a recent interview. "But that's not the fault of our government. That
                  existed before. Our government has created half a million jobs."

                  Mejia, 53, speaks of smaller things: a school here, a clinic there, paving a small
                  road in front of a villager's home.

                  "I'm no jerk!" he sputters on national television to the delight of many
                  Dominicans tired of aloof rulers citing economic statistics.

                  The business community fears Mejia would divert needed infrastructure
                  investments to more social spending and small projects at the community level.

                  "What he represents for the business sector is a lot of uncertainty," Duahajre
                  said. "He's said he's going to change the economy, but it hasn't been very clear
                  what he's going to change about it."

                  Mejia has never held elected office. In 1990 he was the running mate of
                  legendary party leader Jose Pena Gomez, a black who was shunned by the white
                  elite and is widely believed to have been denied the presidency through fraud in
                  1994. Pena Gomez died in 1998.

                  The wild card in the race may be Balaguer, who offers a return to the days when
                  a paternalistic government involved itself in economic affairs.

                  Though frail and blind, Balaguer has equaled and sometimes bested Medina in
                  recent polls, even though he has limited himself to extremely brief remarks
                  during the campaign.

                  It is commonly assumed Balaguer's and Medina's parties would unite forces in
                  the event of a runoff because of their common distaste for the Revolutionary
                  Party's socialist rhetoric.

                  In 1996, Fernandez was elected after Balaguer -- determined to keep Pena
                  Gomez out of the presidency -- abandoned his own party's candidate and threw
                  his support to Fernandez.

                  Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.