Dominicans vote found in election postponed over virus
Voters found in the Dominican Republic are deciding on a new president on Sunday, found in elections postponed from Might as a result of coronavirus pandemic.
Opinion polls advise Luis Abinader of the opposition Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) is the favourite to get the most votes found in the first round.
To get outright, the top candidate has to receive more than 50% of the votes.
Dominicans may also be choosing 190 people of the chamber of deputies and 32 senators.
Who are the top candidates for president?
Opinion polls have regularly put Luis Abinader ahead of all other candidates.
Mr Abinader, whose family members is of Lebanese descent, is a US-educated economist.
He's executive president of Grupo Abicor, a firm owned by his friends and family which operates key tourism projects in the Dominican Republic.
He ran for president in 2016 and managed to get in to the second round, but shed to outgoing president Danilo Medina, who defeat him by almost 27 percentage points.
Mr Abinader and his wife announced on 11 June that they had tested great for coronavirus and he previously to temporarily give up campaigning while he recovered.
The Dominican Republic is one of the worst-affected countries in the Caribbean, with more than 35,000 confirmed cases and a lot more than 775 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Mr Abinader surged in advance in the thoughts and opinions polls after a split found in the governing Dominican Liberation Get together, which has experienced power for more than a decade.
Beneath the Dominican constitution, presidents are limited by two consecutive terms in office. Which means President Medina, who has been around power since 2012, is not able to stand.
He has given his backing to the ex - minister of public works, Gonzalo Castillo.
Mr Castillo is a good wealthy businessman who studied organization administration in Canada and who has founded several companies through the years, including aviation organization Helidosa and air ambulance service Aeroambulancia.
However, many of the voters who have in the past been loyal to the Dominican Liberation Get together may change allegiance to former president Leonel Fernández.
Mr Fernández, who was simply president from 1996 to 2000 and again from 2004 to 2012, decided to run found in the election for the People's Force get together, which he has been leading since he kept the Dominican Liberation Get together.
He studied laws in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, but spent much of his youth in NY.
He has worked as a lawyer, university professor and writer.
Point of view polls have him found in third place behind Mr Abinader and Mr Castillo.
Even so pollsters acknowledged that, with the elections being held under unprecedented circumstances amid the ongoing pandemic, it was really difficult to predict how voters would react on the day.
All applicants had to severely curtail their campaigning due to the virus, however the president of the central electoral board assured voters that polling stations had received hygiene products and that the country was "ready" for the elections.
