Macky Sall is on course to be declared the winner of Sunday’s presidential election in Senegal, according to sources inside the electoral commission.

The preliminary results from Sunday’s vote has given the incumbent president a healthy lead against his challengers. The source claimed that Sall had won 59.5 per cent of the vote.

The Senegalese media have widely published the preliminary results and called the election for Macky Sall.

Media website Dakaractu.com said that Sall had won over 58 per cent of the vote based on preliminary data from polling stations.

His closest rival, former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck, was said to have won 20 per cent, while Ousmane Sonko, the newcomer and rising star received 16 per cent of the votes.

A spokesperson for Idrissa Seck told Reuters that the provisional results were “entirely false”, without giving his camp’s numbers. A spokesperson for Sonko declined to comment.

Official results are expected on Friday.

The early figures will likely spark controversy. Sall’s team declared him the winner on Sunday, but the opposition said their results showed he had not won the required 50 per cent of votes to avoid a run-off next month against a second-placed candidate.

Sall has won popularity for driving economic growth during his first term, building highways and an airport and widening the electricity grid. Yet the opposition and rights groups say he has authoritarian tendencies.