20101101
RFI

Election officials in Côte D'Ivoire say they're working as fast as they can to announce election results, in a bid to restrict violence. Voters went to the presidential polls Sunday for the country's first election in a decade.

The UN's peacekeeping operation in the country deployed an additional 500 troops to reinforce security, and the election has been peaceful so far.

"At the end of the vote I sat through the count at the polling station where I found the presiding officer and his supporters all very professional", said John Kufuor, former Ghanaian president and the head of the Carter Centre observer mission in Abdijan.

"They did things so transparently and my hope was that it could be the same all over the country and if that would be the case then I would say the Ivoirians have done well",

About 5.7 million people were eligible to vote in the election, which had been postponed six times in the past five years. The result is due to Wednesday.