(Recasts with opposition complaints of intimidation)

By Katrina Manson

FREETOWN, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Sierra Leoneans waited anxiously as counting began after runoff presidential polls on Saturday, fearful of clashes between rival political supporters after a vote in which both sides complained of intimidation.

Voting appeared to have passed off peacefully for the most part but there were isolated scuffles in the capital Freetown and the opposition said its officials had been blocked from reaching polling booths in one part of the remote east.

Military police armed with teargas were called in to one polling station in Freetown as the polls closed to disperse an angry crowd which gathered amid suspicions that electoral documents had gone missing.

"When the results come the parties will clash unless they make security very tight," said Ima Kobai, 26, one of the few shopkeepers to have opened in Freetown, bolting her door as people ran down the street to avoid any violence.

A Reuters witness earlier saw police uncover a stash of bottles and rocks in the back of one car they searched.

The elections, the first since U.N. peacekeepers withdrew two years ago, are billed as a test of the West African nation's recovery from a 1991-2002 civil war, in which civilians were mutilated and children were drugged and forced to fight.

Rival groups of ex-combatants have clashed with guns and machetes in the former British colony since the first round on Aug. 11 in which opposition candidate Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People's Congress (APC) took 44 percent.

His rival in the runoff, Vice-President Soloman Berewa of the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), polled 38 percent in the first round.

KOROMA FAVOURITE

Voting appeared orderly in much of Freetown, but the opposition said the situation was less calm around the eastern town of Kailahun near the border with Liberia, which saw some of the heaviest fighting during the war.

"We are very concerned about the situation in Kailahun ... We have not succeeded in getting our agents to the polling stations. They feared for their lives and could not go out," Koroma said after voting in Goderich, just outside Freetown.

"The people of this country will react to an election that is not credible," he said.

Berewa, voting in the capital, said he would step down quietly if voted out and said the situation appeared to be more peaceful after sporadic violence during the campaign.

Koroma is favourite to win Saturday's election after third-placed candidate Charles Margai of the People's Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), who split with the SLPP in 2006, threw his support behind him.

Koroma's APC party has already won legislative polls which took place on Aug. 11 amid disillusionment with outgoing President Tejan Kabbah's failure to curb rampant corruption and reduce unemployment of more than 60 percent.

Kabbah, reelected amid postwar euphoria in 2002, is standing down as required by the constitution after two 5-year terms.

Chris Fomunyoh of the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute's (NDI) observer mission said it was too soon to give the polls a clean bill of health, adding observers were looking into the opposition accusations in the east.

"It is too early in the process to make judgement calls. We have to wait for the crucial vote counting and announcement of results to be able to pronounce on the process," he said.

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