AFP - Rival camps traded allegations of abuses in Ivory Coast's presidential election as first results began to trickle in Monday after polls marred by deadly violence.
The election aims to end a decade of instability in the west African country, the world's top cocoa producer, but tension reigned as the votes were counted with a nighttime curfew in force.
Its spokesman Yacouba Bamba said on television that with just a few thousand overseas votes counted, 60 percent had voted for challenger Alassane Ouattara and 40 percent for his rival, President Laurent Gbagbo.
The two candidates have promised to respect the outcome, but calls for calm multiplied amid fears that violence could escalate.
"We have gone from verbal aggression to physical violence and it seems the worst is yet to come," warned a grouping of Christian and Muslim leaders in a statement on Monday.
Earlier the head of the UN mission in Ivory Coast, Choi Young-jin, said three people were killed on Sunday, raising an earlier government toll and bringing to seven the number reported dead in a week of vote-related violence.
However "despite incidents, which were sometimes violent, in the west and north of the country, the second round of the election was generally conducted in a democratic climate," Choi told a news conference.
"We have had lots of calls telling us of cases of serious human rights violations, intimidation and prevention of voting," Soungalo Coulibaly, a lawyer for Ouattara's RDR party, told reporters on Sunday.
The RDR also alleged voting papers had been tampered with, while Gbagbo's camp responded with its own list of irregularities.
A spokesman for Gbagbo told reporters that voting in the rebel-held northern half of the country was "not transparent overall" and the government said northern New Forces rebels had "ransacked polling stations" in several towns.
The head of the European Union electoral monitoring mission Cristian Peda said barriers were seen blocking people from voting Sunday in several places and that some ballots were stolen. He did not say who was to blame.
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Inside the sorting centres staff busily processed data from the voting stations but as people waited tensely for the results, most of the economic capital Abidjan was quiet.
"People have not come out today because of the election," newspaper seller Mamadou Diallo told AFP. "We are very afraid about the violence."
The vote was a close-fought bout between Gbagbo, 65, a southern Christian who has held on to power since his term expired in 2005, and Ouattara, 68, from the largely Muslim north.
The election, postponed six times in five years, aimed to stabilise what was once west Africa's most prosperous country, in crisis following a 1999 coup and a 2002 civil war that split Ivory Coast in half between north and south.
International observers and both candidates repeatedly called for calm during the voting. Ivorian and UN forces have bolstered their deployments around the country.
Gbagbo had imposed a curfew for each night from Saturday to Wednesday, insisting it is to ensure security. Ouattara branded it a ploy to stifle the opposition.
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