Dominican centre-right President Leonel
Fernandez has won re-election, results showed Saturday, as his chief rival
conceded defeat.
With more than 80 per cent of ballots counted from Friday's vote, he had 53.2
per cent of the vote, which would be enough to avoid a run-off election.
Social democrat Miguel Vargas was at about 41 per cent. With the results going
in Fernandez's favour, Vargas declared his acceptance of the outcome "as a
democrat" and conceded defeat.
The remaining votes were divided between five other candidates.
An attorney by profession, the 54-year-old Fernandez was elected in 2004 and
served an earlier presidential term from 1996-2000.
In the four years of his latest term, the Dominican economy grow at a yearly 9
per cent.
With 5.7 million citizens eligible to vote, calm reigned during Friday's voting
with 270 election observers posted across the Spanish-speaking country, which
occupies the eastern half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, shared with
French-speaking Haiti.
There was some violence leading up to election day, as clashes between
supporters of the two leading candidates led to four deaths.
On election day, a team of observers from the Organization of American States
found that some of the Dominican's 13,000 polling stations were late in opening
Friday morning, due to logistical problems. There were also scattered
complaints of attempts to buy identity documents on election day.
Fernandez's win, however, was aided by the alleged use of state funds in the
campaign. The non-governmental organization Participacion Cuidadana reported
that 48,000 campaign workers for Fernandez's campaign were financed out of
state coffers.
Vergas, a member of the Party of Dominican Revolution, said the Fernandez
victory demonstrated "the most unabashed use of state finances to attain
re-election."
Fernandez's Party for Dominican Liberation controls both chambers of Congress, dpa reported.
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