2008News

President Fernandez reelected

Dominicans gave four more years to President Leonel Fernandez and Vice President Rafael Alburquerque in the Friday, 16 May presidential election. Fernandez is credited with restoring macroeconomic stability and a favourable business climate after inheriting an economic and banking crisis.

Of a total of 5,764,387 registered voters, 4,086,541 valid votes were counted.

The Central Electoral Board issued a long awaited first bulletin at 10:10pm on Friday showing Fernandez leading with 53.12%, followed by Vargas with 41.22% and Aristy with 4.63%. The trend would keep. A final sixth bulletin for the evening, issued at 1:03am on Saturday, with 81.5% of the 13,075 voting stations accounted for, showed Fernandez maintained a 53.43% lead with 1,764,308 votes, followed by PRD candidate Miguel Vargas with 40.93% of the vote, and 1,351,461 votes. Amable Aristy of the PRSC had received 149,772 votes (4.54%), Eduardo Estrella of the Cuarta Via received 15,808 (0.48%), Guillermo Moreno of MIUCA received 14,663 votes (0.44%), Pedro de Jesus Candelier received 4,759 votes (0.14%) and Trajano Santana 1,195 (0.04%). A Saturday, 17 May morning 7th bulletin with continue to show Fernandez ahead with 53.55%, to Vargas’s 40.68 and Aristy’s 4.68%.

The final, Bulletin No. 9, issued at 6pm on Saturday, 17 May showed President Leonel Fernandez had won with a convincing 53.83% plurality (2,199,734 votes) last Friday. Miguel Vargas followed with 40.48% (1,654,066 votes), Amable Aristy received 4.59% (187,645 votes), Eduardo Estrella 0.47% (19,309 votes), Guillermo Moreno 0.44% (18,136 votes), Pedro de Jesus Candelier 0.15% (6,118 votes) and Trajano Santana 0.04% (1,533 votes).

Calling for a union of all interests, Fernandez thanked voters for giving him his third term in office and the first re-election in Dominican politics since Joaquin Balaguer was re-elected in 1990. His main challenger, Miguel Vargas Maldonado, had conceded defeat shortly after the second bulletin from the Central Electoral Board (JCE) was released to the public. The 53.8% garnered by Fernandez is down 3% from his results in the 2004 election. Vargas Maldonado and the PRD party slightly increased their vote, but fell short of the brass ring by around 13%.

Fernandez won in the National District all but 5 provinces. The PRD won in three northwestern provinces (Monte Cristi, Dajabon and Valverde), and in Maria Trinidad Sanchez (Nagua) and Sanchez Ramirez (Cotui).