SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) ? Dominicans formed orderly lines at voting stations across the country Sunday to choose a new president from a field that included a brash former president whose last term ended with an economic crisis and a technocrat from a governing party that spent the past eight years on a public works spending spree. Medina hoped to succeed President Leonel Fernandez, who spent $2.6 billion on such major infrastructure projects as a subway system, hospitals and roads to modernize a country that is the top tourist destination in the Caribbean but remains largely poor. Many voters conceded that Medina, a 60-year-old stalwart of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party, wasn't a particularly exciting candidate, but said they were eager for a stability in a country with a history of economic and political turmoil. Six candidates were running for president, but Medina's only real opponent was Mejia, who lost his bid for a second presidential term in 2004 because of a deep economic crisis sparked by the collapse of three banks. "The question is whether they are more tired of the current government or more fearful of what might happen under Mejia," said Espinal, director of the Latin American Studies Center at Temple University in Philadelphia. Besides president, Dominicans were electing a vice president from a field that included the heavily favored first lady, Margarita Cedeno de Fernandez, and seven members of the Chamber of Deputies who will represent people who have settled overseas. Both presidential candidates proposed to increase spending on education and to do what they can to create jobs in a country of 10 million people that is largely dependent on tourism and where unemployment is officially about 14 percent, though the vast majority of workers are in the poorly paid informal sector.
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