(Adds biggest observer team reporting ballot stuffing)

By Katrina Manson

FREETOWN, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Sierra Leone counted votes on Sunday from a tense presidential run-off which went peacefully despite fears of violence, but both sides accused the other of fraud and intimidation, and observers reported ballot stuffing.

Saturday's presidential run-off vote, the culmination of polls seen as a key test of stability in the West African state after a 1991-2002 civil war, will pick a successor to President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who is standing down after two terms.

Kabbah has backed Vice President Solomon Berewa, but local media said early trends gave a slight edge to opposition All People's Congress (APC) leader Ernest Bai Koroma who won an Aug. 11 poll and whose alliance will control the next parliament.

"We have five to 10 percent of the vote in from our local reporters. So far the APC is leading," said Ransford Wright of the Independent Radio Network, which links 20 local stations whose reporters collect results posted outside polling stations.

No official results were expected until at least Monday.

Nevertheless, APC claimed to have won 56 percent of ballots already counted, and supporters celebrated after Saturday's polls closed, dancing on street corners and chanting party anthems as they rode through the streets in trucks.

The first round exposed regional and ethnic rifts between the pro-APC north and west -- including the coastal capital Freetown -- and the south and east, where Kabbah's hitherto ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) is strong.

Tensions spilled over into violence when Koroma ventured into traditional SLPP country to canvass votes, along with SLPP dissident Charles Margai, a southerner who came third in the Aug. 11 vote and then threw his weight behind Koroma.

BALLOT STUFFING, INTIMIDATION

The National Election Watch (NEW), which represents 347 civil society groups and fielded 5,420 observers in more than 80 percent of polling stations, said Saturday's polls were more orderly than on Aug. 11, but said there had been some fraud.

"NEW is aware of some incidents around the country related to chaos in certain polling stations, ballot stuffing and violation of voting procedures," the group, the largest observer team monitoring the elections, said in a preliminary report.

Each candidate's camp accused the other of harassment.

"We have reports that 40 to 50 of our polling agents were harassed, intimidated and taken out of polling stations," SLPP National Chairman Alhaji Jah said. The party said it would reject results in three northern districts as a result.

"Ex-combatants for the APC have been very much participating actively and some of the police were not very impartial. Even so, piecemeal results are showing good signs that Solomon Berewa should be the next president," Jah said.

The APC said there was widespread double-voting in the large southeastern town of Kenema, and said five of its agents had been kidnapped and attacked with machetes in the southern city of Bo, Sierra Leone's second city and an SLPP stronghold.

"We are not accepting the results from Kailahun and Kenema," APC spokesman Alpha Kanu said.

Kailahun is in the eastern diamond mining area. Its gems fuelled the 11-year civil war in which 50,000 people were killed. Drug-crazed militia fighters, many just children, hacked hands, feet and other body parts off hundreds of people.

The polls are the first since U.N. peacekeepers left two years ago.

AlertNet news is provided by