Danilo Medina leads Dominican Republic's presidential elections

The Dominican Republic was discovered by Columbus on his first voyage.

Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominican Republic is the oldest European settlement in the western hemisphere.

The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola which it shares with Haiti.

The Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation spread across 48,445 square kilometres (area) with 10.4 million people (population).

Danilo Medina is a Dominican politician and economist whose government came into power in 2012.

Medina not only won more than half the votes (just over 51%) but also left the another six candidates behind in the first round of the presidential election.

In Medina's government, little progress was made to handle the high levels of government mismanagement and corruption.

The Dominican court issued a ruling that narrowed the definition of citizenship; it said that being born in the country does not grant citizenship.

The court directed officials to purge voter rolls of non-citizens, i.e. anyone with foreign ancestry born in 1929 or later.

Over 200,000 people were stripped of citizenship, although the government had estimated the initial count to be around 24,000.

Haitian and Dominican officials assured Haiti that concrete measures will be taken to safeguard the basic rights of people of Haitian descent living in the country.

However, the Dominican delegation did not change its position on the court ruling or delve upon how it would carry it out.

Later, Medina's government allowed illegal residents and Haitian immigrants to apply for legal residency permits.

Local media were calling 15th May as the most complex election day in the history.

The contestants include the first lady presidential candidate and the current president Danilo Medina.

Inspite of the popularity of Mr Medina, his rivals criticised his foreign policies regarding Haiti.

Luis Abinader, the opposition leader, said that he would be interested in a free trade agreement with Haiti.

Dominican Republic's current president Domino Medina has won 61% of the votes in 12% voting till now. He is a member of the Democratic Liberation Party which has been in power for 12 years.

Luis Abinader, his challenger has blamed his government for failing to control corruption and high crime-rate.

Voting was extended for extra hours due to technical problems at some polling stations.

Dominican Republic's President Danilo Medina claimed victory in the Dominican Republic elections after early results showed him winning by a wide margin.

At a rally for supporters, he said the people had voted to "continue on the path that we started."

Results show that Medina has won 62% of the seats; however, over 30% of the votes are yet to be counted.