BUJUMBURA: Authorities in Burundi were expected Friday to announce the results of controversial presidential elections, with President Pierre Nkurunziza certain of winning a contested third consecutive term.

Nkurunziza pushed ahead with the presidential polls on Tuesday, though the vote had been branded as illegitimate by the international community.

Burundi’s opposition said his candidacy was unconstitutional and a violation of a 2006 peace deal that ended 13 years of civil war in the small central African nation.

Results from the vote are expected on Friday afternoon.

Nkurunziza is seen as a shoo-in for another mandate after his main rivals boycotted the vote.

The government dismissed criticism of the poll after the United States, European Union and former colonial power Belgium said the election was not credible.

Anti-Nkurunziza protests have been violently repressed, leaving at least 100 people dead since late April. Many opponents have also fled — joining an exodus of more than 150,000 ordinary Burundians who fear their country may again be engulfed by widespread violence.

In mid-May, rebel generals attempted to overthrow Nkurunziza in a coup, which failed. They have since launched a rebellion in the north of the country.

In the latest in a string of attacks, four people were wounded in a grenade attack overnight Thursday on the house of an official from Nkurunziza’s ruling CNDD-FDD party.

“It exploded and injured three of my children, two seriously... my daughter received shrapnel in the stomach,” said Esperance Ngerageze, a local government official and member of the CNDD-FDD (National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy).