SANTO DOMINGO (AFP) - Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez has been re-elected to a third term in a first round of voting, as rival Miguel Vargas conceded after a mostly peaceful election in the Caribbean nation.

The progressive liberal Fernandez was ahead with 53.22 percent of the vote -- enough to avoid a runoff -- with more than 62 percent of ballots counted, the Central Election Committee announced on Friday.

Social Democrat Vargas was at 41.10 percent, while PRSC party candidate Amable Aristy Castro was in third with 4.73 percent, the committee reported.

"The Dominican people expressed themselves today at the ballot box," Vargas said in a brief statement at the campaign headquarters of his Dominican Revolutionary Party.

"I am a democrat ... (and) I recognize and accept the results of these elections," he said.

Fernandez, 54, said he was grateful for the nation's vote of confidence "to continue on the path of stability and progress," and called for two days of celebrations as he defended the legitimacy of the "democratic and transparent" election battle.

Shortly after initial official results were reported, thousands of pro-government supporters took to the streets as loudspeakers blared merengue music during a light drizzle.

The official results largely mirrored exit polls and earlier opinion polls which forecast Fernandez would carry a wide lead throughout the mountainous country of nine million people.

Hours earlier, Fernandez was forecast to win with 56 percent of ballots, according to polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland.

Fernandez "won in every region" of the country, firm official Andrew Claster told AFP.

Fernandez, a progressive liberal who grew up in New York City, has led the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti to the west, from 1996 to 2000 and 2004 to 2008.

The voting took place in a climate of "order and good organization," despite isolated incidents of violence, said Jose Octavio Bordon, head of the team of some 200 observers with the Organization of American States.

"What we have seen is order and good organization," Bordon told reporters.

At least three people were killed late Wednesday in a shoot-out between supporters of Fernandez and Vargas ahead of the vote.

Political violence marred 2006 midterm elections when eight people were killed, while on the day Fernandez was elected in 2004, six people were killed in politically charged violence.

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