The allegations of vote rigging by Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s party comes as his main rival and deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta is leading the race by 53 percent to 41 percent with about half the votes counted.

“We have evidence that results we have been receiving have actually been doctored,” Kalonzo Musyoka, Odinga’s running mate told reporters Thursday in the capital, Nairobi. “The national vote tallying process lacks integrity and has to be stopped.”

In the previous 2007 presidential election, similar accusations by Odinga of being cheated of victory triggered ethnically charged chaos that left more than 1,000 Kenyans dead and several hundred thousand homeless. The violence devastated Kenya’s economy and its image of a bulwark of stability on the continent. Musyoka added that his comments were not a call for Odinga’s supporters to wage mass action, and urged them to remain calm.

In Nairobi and other parts of the nation, the streets remained calm following Musyoka’s comments. In interviews, many Kenyans said they would accept the results or challenge them through the courts rather than plunge their country into mayhem. Still, as each day goes by without a result, many observers fear that tensions and anxiety could rise amongst rival tribes, raising the specter of another eruption of ethnic violence.

Musyoka listed several voting districts where he claimed the number of votes cast were more than the number of registered voters. He also questioned why on Tuesday there were more than 300,000 rejected ballots, which if counted could have narrowed the gap between Odinga and Kenyatta, leading to a possible runoff.

But on Thursday, the vote tallies showed a sharp fall in the rejected votes, raising questions about what happened to them. Musyoka added that Odinga’s party could seek a court injunction to stop the vote count.

Kenyan election officials said their findings did not support Musyoka’s allegations.

“With the rigorous verification in place, there is no room to doctor the results whatsoever by any election official,” Isaak Hassan, chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission told reporters. “We cannot stop tallying. This is a legal process.”

International elections observers have declared the election as transparent, despite the technical problems, anchored by a breakdown in the computer system that was electronically tallying the votes. That has forced election workers to manually count the votes, which has dramatically slowed down the process.

If no candidate wins by 50 percent — there are a total of eight presidential candidates — a runoff vote between the top two candidates — Kenyatta and Odinga — is scheduled for April, if there are no legal challenges.

The counting could be concluded on Friday, but it could also drag on into Monday, the last day that the results must be declared according to Kenyan law, said Hassan.

The United States and its allies are closely observing the results. Kenya is a key counterterrorism ally, playing an important role in containing Somalia’s al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab militia. It is also an economic powerhouse in the region, vital to stability in East Africa.

And if Kenyatta wins, that would bring more challenges for the United States and western powers. Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, are both accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court and are scheduled to face trial. On Thursday, the ICC announced that it would postpone the trial, scheduled for next month, to July 9.

Both men are charged with instigating tribal mobs to rampage and shed blood after the 2007 vote. They have denied the allegations, and said they would cooperate with the court.

Kenyatta has accused western countries, particularly former colonial power Britain, of interfering in the vote. Britain’s High Commissioner for Kenya has called the charges “entirely false and misleading.”

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