Dominican president nominated to seek re-election

SANTO DOMINGO, May 7 (Reuters) President Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic will seek re-election in 2008 after his party overwhelmingly picked him as its candidate in a primary ballot over the weekend.

While less than half of the votes cast in yesterday's poll had been counted by today, Fernandez's lead was so commanding that his rival, Danilo Medina, a former presidential chief of staff, quickly but grudgingly conceded defeat.

''Re-election has been forced on us by the power of the state,'' said Medina, a 56-year-old economist who had campaigned vigorously against the principle of re-election in a country still haunted by the legacy of autocratic strongmen.

With around 37 percent of voting stations reporting results early today, Fernandez had some 71 percent of the vote and Medina about 29 percent, said Cesar Pina Toribio, coordinator of the electoral commission of the centrist Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).

Fernandez, 53, will face off in May 2008 against a former public works minister, Miguel Vargas Maldonado, 56, who was picked in January as the candidate of the left-of-center Party of the Dominican Revolution (PRD).

Fernandez has presided over a strong economic recovery since taking up his second, but not consecutive, term in 2004.

A botched banking sector rescue operation launched by his predecessor had brought the Caribbean country to the brink of defaulting on its international bonds as it ran out of money, and sent inflation and unemployment soaring.

But under Fernandez, the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with impoverished Haiti, cut state spending, restructured its international debt and secured financing from the International Monetary Fund.

Fernandez's PLD trounced the PRD in legislative elections in May 2006.

The PLD was formed when the PRD split in 1973. The PRD was established in 1939 in Cuba by a group of exiled politicians opposed to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo.

REUTERS RS HS2134