Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse took an early lead over opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe in the presidential election, official figures showed on Friday.

With more than 400,000 votes counted by 3:20 AM (21:20 GMT Thursday), Rajapakse had secured 223,167, ahead of Wickremesinghe with 194,037 votes, early results showed.

The election commissioner is due to announce final results later on Friday.

Election officials said turnout was around 75 percent.

Sri Lanka's 5th presidential election was held largely peaceful on Thursday as 13.3 million voters cast their ballots to choose their new president from 13 contenders.

Among the 13 candidates, main opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and incumbent Prime Minister and the ruling party's candidate Mahinda Rajapakse are two of front runners.

About 13,327,160 people aged over 18 are eligible to vote during the nine-hour polling period from 7:00 AM (01:00GMT) to 4:00 PM (10:00 GMT).

The election is staging at 10,486 polling stations islandwide including 233 cluster polling stations set up in the government-controlled areas for the voters residing in the areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The government deployed 24,000 police officers and more troops to keep order during the presidential election, and over 22,000 election observers from local and abroad were being detailed across the island country.

Election officials said there was brisk voting in the Sinhala majority dominated south of the island while the war torn Tamil regions of north and east recorded a low poll.

At least four people were killed while 14 others were injured including six policemen in separate incidents of violence in the eastern province, police said.

In the eastern district of Batticaloa, the European Union polls monitors had withdrawn from duties citing security fears following two separate bomb throwing incidents in the district.

In the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel dominated northern province the polling was less than 20 percent with the Jaffna city recording only 1.05 percent polling, Rohana Jagathchandra, an official for the independent polls monitors People's Action for Free and Fair Elections, said.

The LTTE rebels had advised the Tamils to stay away from the election. In the Sinhala dominated south the vote had been largely free and fair with sporadic minor incidents recorded.

Mahinda Rajapakse, the incumbent prime minister and ruling party's candidate, voted in his home town of Beliatta in the deep south while the opposition candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe exercised his vote in the capital Colombo.

An independent poll survey had shown that the issue of cost of living and the peace process with Tamil Tigers were the two main issues in the election.

Rajapakse has pledged a tough line on the Tamil rebels as he forged election pacts with the leftist JVP (People's Liberation Front) and the Sinhalese nationalist party JHU (National Heritage Party).

By contrast, the opposition United National Party leader Wickremesinghe vowed to bring about a permanent resolution to the ethnic problem through a political solution based on the current framework.

Rajapakse and Wickremesinghe also have different opinions on economic policy. Rajapakse vowed to build up a "national economy" by attributing the positive attributes of free market economy with domestic aspirations. Wickremesinghe put more emphasis on free market policies and foreign investment.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2005)