Wade again president

[nairiporter]

Sources: Senegal president wins re-election

Story highlights
• Government sources: Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade has more than half of votes
• Top candidate needs to win more than 50 percent of ballot to prevent runoff
• Regional observers said Sunday's vote was generally free and fair
• Official results due later this week; some fear opposition may reject results

DAKAR, Senegal (Reuters) -- Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has secured re-election by winning more than half of the votes in Sunday's poll, government sources said Tuesday.

Opponents already had accused Wade's camp of jumping the gun in claiming a first-round victory, raising fears of a challenge to official results that are due later this week.

The sources told Reuters that with 95 percent of votes counted, Wade had won 56.08 percent of valid votes.

"With this score, a first-round win is secured," said one of the sources, who asked not to be named.

Wade's victory in 2000 enhanced Senegal's reputation as a peaceful democracy and favorite of Western aid donors seeking to shore up stable nations in volatile West Africa. (Watch how Wade, 80, insists his age is not an issue )

Apart from a rumbling civil conflict in the southern Casamance province, political violence is rare, but tensions have spilled over into isolated clashes in recent weeks.

Some fear more trouble if opposition candidates reject the official results when they are released. They are due by midnight Friday and then must be confirmed by the Constitutional Council once any complaints of irregularities have been dealt with.

The government sources said votes still only had to be finalized from three electoral departments: Koungheul, Kaffrine and overseas voters.

Sunday's polling passed off without major incident, and monitors from West African regional bloc ECOWAS said it was generally free and fair. Partial results indicated a record turnout of 70 percent or more.

But rival candidates and the country's main human rights organization had criticized Wade's campaign for declaring victory within hours of polls closing.

"Politicians should be banned from declaring themselves the victor to avoid manipulation or influencing the electorate," the Dakar-based African human rights organization RADDHO said in a statement.

Abdoulaye Bathily, one of Wade's 14 challengers, denounced as "unacceptable" results announced early Monday by Wade's campaign manager, Prime Minister Macky Sall, showing Wade headed for outright victory with more than 50 percent of the vote.

Bathily's campaign said an audit of the electoral list had demonstrated it was possible to be registered more than once; that supposedly indelible ink used on people's fingers to prevent multiple voting was in fact washable; and that candidates' representatives at polling stations had been unable to check voters' identities.

"These results do not reflect the spirit of the people, who in reality expressed a massive rejection of Abdoulaye Wade's regime," the Bathily campaign said in a statement.

Media watchdogs accused state media of pro-Wade bias.

The main opposition Socialist Party, which Wade toppled from four decades in power seven years ago in one of Africa's first transfers of power from one elected administration to another, initially said it had evidence of a plot to rig the vote.

"We express our surprise at President Wade's score. We continue to analyze the results as they reach us," said Abdoulaye Elimane Kane, a senior campaign manager for Socialist candidate Ousmane Tanor Dieng, said Tuesday.