UPDATE 6-Dominican president wins re-election

(Recasts with main rival conceding)

By Tom Brown

SANTO DOMINGO, May 16 (Reuters) - Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, widely credited with pulling his Caribbean country out of a deep economic slump, cruised to a re-election victory on Friday, winning more than enough votes to avoid a run-off.

With 49 percent of voting stations counted, the central elections board gave Fernandez of the centrist Dominican Liberation Party 53 percent of the vote, while his nearest rival, Miguel Vargas Maldonado of the center-left Dominican Revolutionary Party, received 41 percent.

"I accept and recognize the results of the elections," Vargas, a businessman, said in a speech at his campaign headquarters.

Francisco Javier Garcia, Fernandez's campaign chief, said, "the Dominican people, with their intended votes, have decided not to leave for tomorrow what they could settle today."

Fernandez inherited a crumbling economy in 2004 when he became president for the second time. The collapse of a major bank in 2003 sent inflation soaring, plunged the Dominican government deep into the red and provoked a sharp downturn.

With the help of loans from the International Monetary Fund, Fernandez managed to turn things around, although poverty remains widespread.

The election on Friday that catapulted Fernandez into his third term was marred by violence.