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).