Santo Domingo - Dominican centre-right President Leonel Fernandez won re-election in Friday's vote, with his chief rival conceding defeat. With more than 60 per cent of ballots counted, he had 53 per cent of the vote, which would be enough to avoid a run-off election.
Social democrat Miguel Vargas was at 40 per cent. With the results going in Fernandez's favour, Vargas declared his acceptance of the outcome "as a democrat" and conceded defeat.
Fernandez, 54, was elected in 2004 and served an earlier presidential term from 1996-2000.
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.
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 scattered complaints of attempts to buy identity documents on election day.
Fernandez's Party for Dominican Liberation controls both chambers of Congress.
