Low turnout in tense Guinea Bissau election by Malick Rokhy Ba

The candidate for the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Malam Bacai Sanha (above) speaks outside a polling station in Bissau. Guinea Bissau's presidential election, after the assassination of the incumbent and other killings, was marked by one of the lowest turnouts ever, officials said as the slow count got underway.

Guinea Bissau's presidential election, after the assassination of the incumbent and other killings, was marked by one of the lowest turnouts ever, officials said Monday as the slow count got under way.

First provisional results would take four or five days and the official results up to a week, National Electoral Commission (CNE) spokesman Orlando Mendes told AFP.

Eleven candidates, including three former presidents, ran to replace assassinated leader Joao Bernardo Vieira in the coup-prone former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people.

No incidents were reported but the atmosphere was tense as the election came less than four months after members of the army gunned down Vieira.

Vieira, who ruled Guinea-Bissau for much of the past quarter century, was killed by soldiers in apparent revenge for the death of army chief, General Batista Tagme Na Waie, in a bomb attack.

On June 5, former territorial administration minister, Baciro Dabo, a candidate in the election, and former defence minister Helder Proenca, were killed by soldiers amid allegations that they were plotting a coup.

The CNE spokesman said Sunday's turnout was "very weak" compared to recent legislative elections when up to 82 percent of the 600,000 eligible voters took part. Another source close to the CNE said the abstention rate could have been up to 40 percent, the highest of the past decade.

"It has got nothing to do with the rain, but more the recent events," the CNE spokesman said, referring to the killings.

The three leading contenders in the contest are all former heads of state.

Malam Bacai Sanha served as interim president from June 1999 to May 2000 and was candidate for the long-dominant African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which already controls 67 of the 100 seats in the national assembly.

Also running was Kumba Yala, whose time in office between 2000 and 2003 was marked by wide fiscal mismanagement and sweeping arrests of opposition figures until he was brought down in a coup.

Another former head of state, running as an independent, is Henrique Rosa (2003-2005).

If no candidate wins an overall majority in the first round, the election will go to a run-off between the two highest-placed contenders on July 28.

Whoever wins will have to contend with grinding poverty -- Guinea-Bissau was ranked 175 out of 177 countries in the 2007-2008 UN Development Programme human index report -- and with the corrupting influence of drugs trafficking.

It is a transit point in the cocaine trade to Europe from Latin America, according to the United Nations.

Raimundo Pereira, the caretaker president, described the poll as "an important step towards stability" in the country which became independent from Portugal in 1974.