SANTO DOMINGO Dominican voters began heading to the polls Saturday for mid-term elections that will help determine whether centrist President Leonel Fernandez makes a second presidential bid in the year 2000. Polls in this Caribbean nation of 7.9 million opened at 6 a.m. (1000 GMT). Some 4.1 million Dominicans are expected to cast ballots throughout the day. The campaign, which ended Thursday, was marked by the death of Jose Francisco Pena Gomez, head of the Social-Democratic Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and one of the country's most important political figures over the past 40 years.

The charismatic Pena Gomez, 61, was the first important black politician in Dominican politics and the leading candidate for mayor of Santo Domingo. He died late Sunday of stomach cancer. Fernandez, 44, defeated Pena Gomez for the presidency in 1996 with support of the perennial Joaquin Balaguer. But his centrist Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) has a tiny presence in the legislature just 12 deputies and one senator.

Balaguer, now 91, remains influential behind the scenes of the conservative Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC), his political party. Voters are set to decide the mandates of 1,921 senators, deputies and local officials. (AFP)