Sri Lanka president takes big lead in early count

President Mahinda Rajapakse is well ahead of main rival Sarath Fonseka in Sri Lanka's election, according to early results Wednesday.

Election officials said Rajapakse had won over 60 percent of the popular vote with just over a million ballots from Tuesday's election counted. Nearly 9.85 million people voted in all.

The first results showed Rajapakse getting 723,362 votes against 460,725 for Fonseka, according to official results.

Officials said they estimated about 70 percent of the electorate of 14.08 million turned out.

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