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

The claim from Preval’s team could not be verified, and the first official results were not expected to be released until today, said Jacques Bernard, director general of Haiti’s electoral council. Final results could come on Friday or Saturday, he said.

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 Preval, a shy and soft-spoken 63-year-old agronomist widely supported by Haiti’s poor masses.

More than 50 percent of Haiti’s 3.5 million registered voters were believed to have cast ballots, said David Wimhurst, a U.N. spokesman, 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.