Jakarta and other cities were surprisingly calm the day after more than 110 million people cast their votes for one of 48 parties, defying earlier fears of protests and violence. Monitoring groups said the poll was orderly and credible.

Early results showed Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party -- Struggle (PDI-P) leading the race for 462 parliamentary seats, although the tallies represented less than one per cent of the total vote.

Officials from President B J Habibie's Golkar Party, which held power for 32 years under his predecessor Suharto, said the early results were in contention because tallies from remote and rural areas across the vast archipelago had not yet been reported.

However, the PDI-P claimed only hours after voting ended yesterday that itwon a landslide victory with up to 45 per cent of the vote.

The National Election Committee was to spend the next few days consolidating results from more than 320,000 polling stations. A clear trend of who is winning was expected to emerge by tomorrow.

Committee chairman Jakob Tobing said the initial results ``reflect only a very small number of polling stations in urban areas and polling stations close... to telephones''.

Although some results had come in from all 27 provinces, he said, ``it doesn't reflect the average result from each city''.

One Western election expert said it was difficult to predict the outcome because early results were not representative of both urban and rural areas.

But some observers said Megawati's PDI-P, once banned by Suharto, looked in a good position to finish on top, while Golkar could end up in fourth place.

Opposition figure Abdurrahman Wahid's National Awakening Party, and the Muslim-based United Development Party, currently in second and fourth placerespectively, were expected to meet in Jakarta this afternoon with members of PDI-P and Golkar.