Cairns (Australia), Sep 18 (IANS/EFE): Coup leader Frank Bainimarama has won parliamentary elections in Fiji, home to a large Indian-origin population, amidst opposition accusations of electoral fraud, according to provisional results released Thursday.

The Fiji First Party of Bainimarama, who came to power in 2006 after a bloodless coup, received 60 percent of votes in the elections held Wednesday.

His rival, Teimumu Kepa, leader of the Social Democratic Liberal Party, received 26 percent of the votes, while the National Federation Party took five percent, according to the count of votes at 2,025 polling stations.

The electoral commission is scheduled to recount the votes and announce the final results later Thursday.

Mahendra Chaudhry, the Indo-Fijian community-dominated Fiji Labour Party leader, came in fifth with two percent.

He claimed that Bainimarama's party bought votes and that there were irregularities during the voting process, the New Zealand television channel TVNZ reported.

International election observers will announce their conclusions later Thursday, although they said Wednesday that they had not observed any irregularities.

A total of 249 candidates, including 44 women, were nominated to contest the 50 seats of the single-house parliament, constituted according to the new constitution approved last year by the authorities.

During the years of his authoritarian leadership, Bainimarama gained the support of most of the population for his efforts to improve the island nation's transport infrastructure.

He also promoted harmony among Fiji's different ethnic groups, although he has been accused of violating human rights.

Organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticised the torture of detainees under military custody.

Critics also charge that the new constitution, in addition to granting amnesty to the leaders of the 2006 coup, restricts the rights of association and of the press.

Politics in Fiji, the economy of which largely depends on sugar exports, tourism and remittances from emigrants, has been marked by rivalry between the Fijian ethnic majority group and the Indian-origin minority.

The Fijian Melanesians, officially known as "iTaukei" and owners of most of the land, represent 57 percent of the population, while people of Indian origin, who dominate the business sector, account for 37 percent of the 900,000 inhabitants of the archipelago.

Elections are a necessary step for thawing diplomatic relations with Australia, the European Union and the Commonwealth of Nations which suffered because of the coup.