PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A spokesman for a former Haitian president, Rene Preval, said yesterday that unconfirmed early results showed him with a wide lead in the country’s presidential race – even though many ballots were still being carried in from remote polling places by plane, truck, and mule.

The claim from Mr. Preval’s team could not be verified, and the first official results were not expected to be released until 20% of the vote is counted, which could happen late Wednesday, a spokesman for Haiti’s electoral council, Stephan Lacroix, said. Final results might not be available until Friday.

Tuesday’s elections were the first since the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a bloody revolt two years ago, and officials said collecting and tabulating the results would take several days.

But some polling stations posted unconfirmed local results outside. These showed strong early support for Mr. Preval, a shy and soft-spoken 63-year-old agronomist widely supported by Haiti’s poor masses.

At a large polling center near the huge slum of Cite Soleil, unconfirmed results taped to large columns inside showed Mr. Preval winning about 90% of the votes cast there.

Across the capital in Petionville, home to many of Haiti’s wealthiest citizens as well the poor Haitians who serve them, Mr. Preval took slightly more than 70% of the vote at another polling station, according to posted results.

Mr. Preval’s political adviser, Bob Manuel, said preliminary calculations show the former president having won 67% of the nationwide vote, with 16% of votes counted.

Mr. Preval himself was in his rural hometown of Marmelade and wasn’t speaking to reporters.

Haitians eagerly awaited the first returns yesterday as scores of U.N. peacekeepers patrolled quiet streets in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Tuesday’s voting, guarded by a 9,000-strong U.N. force, was fraught with early delays but largely free of the violence that has plagued the capital since Mr. Aristide fled.

The leading contender among the 33 presidential candidates was Mr. Preval, the only elected leader in Haitian history to finish his term. He is also a former ally of Mr.Aristide, who remains in exile in South Africa.

Mr. Preval’s closest rivals include a wealthy garment factory owner, Charles Henri Baker, 50, and Leslie Manigat, 75, who was president for five months in 1988 until the army ousted him.

More than 50% of Haiti’s 3.5 million registered voters were believed to have cast ballots, a U.N. spokesman, David Wimhurst, said, adding that a precise figure wasn’t yet available. He also said that the United Nations has not received any reports of fraud or other major irregularities in the voting.

“I think no one can deny the legitimacy of this process because people really participated,” the special U.N. envoy to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, told Associated Press Television News.

However, he conceded that polls opened too late and “some people were not even able to vote.”

Mr. Manigat’s wife, Senate candidate Myrlande Manigat, said initial reports from their own party’s representatives monitoring the vote count showed Mr. Preval with a big lead in her district, which includes much of metropolitan Port-au-Prince and outlying areas.

“We are very worried that Preval has won on the first round,” Ms. Manigat told the Associated Press.

If no candidate wins a majority, a runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held March 19.

The vote count was going “very slowly” because of delays retrieving ballots from rural areas, Mr. Wimhurst said.

“The hardest part is getting ballots back to the capital,” where the vote tabulation center is located, he said. “In some cases, it will take two days to get ballots from outlying areas.”

U.N. officials were relying in part on 280 mules, loaded with bulging sacks of ballots and other material. A U.N. plane also arrived in the capitol, carrying balloting results from the countryside.

The huge turnout all but overwhelmed electoral officials, who conceded they were ill-prepared for the crush of voters. Many stations opened late, lacking the necessary workers, security and ballots to handle so many voters who turned out by foot, car and brightly colored buses. Many Haitians cast ballots after spending hours in lines stretching up to a mile.