Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 17, 1994                   TAG: 9405170138
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN THE WORLD

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Two opposition parties charged fraud in presidential and national elections Monday pitting President Joaquin Balaguer's Social Christian Reform Party (PRSC) against the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) of Jose Francisco Pena Gomez.

After the polling stations opened at 6 a.m., voters began to complain that their names were mysteriously missing from the electoral rolls.

The Electoral Council ordered that the polls be kept open an extra three hours, until 9 p.m., and announced that voters with registration cards would be allowed to cast ballots even if their names were missing from the rolls.

But Pena Gomez, who had held a slim lead in most recent public opinion polls over Balaguer, 87 years old and seeking a seventh term, quickly charged fraud.

- Knight-Ridder/Tribune