Africa, Elections | featured news

Kenya's presidential race tightened on Friday as Uhuru Kenyatta's lead narrowed over his main rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, raising the prospect of a second-round run-off.

Ghana's electoral authorities said incumbent leader John Dramani Mahama won a new term as president in the West African state in an election the opposition said was marred by tampering.

Sierra Leoneans crowded polling stations on Saturday to vote in a close-fought election they hope can rebrand their poor, war-scarred West African state as an emerging democracy with the potential for fast growth from mining and oil.

Lithuanians have voted out their conservative government after one of the world's deepest recessions, early results suggest. Two leftist parties, Labour and the Social Democrats, are currently placed first and second.

A liberal alliance led by a former Libyan rebel prime minister said Sunday the party's unofficial preliminary results put it in the lead in the country's landmark parliamentary elections, the first since the ouster of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Crowds of joyful Libyans, some with tears in their eyes, parted with the legacy of Muammar Gaddafi on Saturday as they voted in the first free national election in 60 years.

The chairman of the election commission announced that Mohamed Morsi had won 51 percent of the runoff vote completed last weekend, an ambiguous marker in Egypt’s promised transition to democracy.

Egypt entered its final day of voting on Sunday with very few people going to the polls to choose Hosni Mubarak’s successor under a cloud of apprehension and anticipation. Turnout appeared dismal in a sign of just how polarizing and demoralizing the choice between a military strongman and conservative Islamist is for the Arab World’s most populous nation.

Egypt’s election commission rejected fraud complaints and confirmed on Monday that a conservative Islamist from the Muslim Brotherhood and a secular former military officer will compete in next month’s presidential runoff.

Egyptians began voting freely on Wednesday for the first time to pick their president in a wide open election that pits Islamists against men who served under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.