Kosovo moderates in early poll lead

Most of the 1,466 polling stations were packed

Counting is under way in Kosovo's local council elections, which the United Nations has described as the most successful and democratic of recent polls in the Balkans.

It is the first time Kosovo Albanians have voted in an officially recognised poll in 10 years.

Many of them regard the election as the first step toward independence.

People of Kosovo... you voted peacefully, with dignity and tolerance

UN governor Bernard Kouchner

The moderate nationalist Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), led by Ibrahim Rugova, has already claimed victory.

The party says it won clear majorities in 17 out of the 18 Kosovo municipalities in which 70% of the votes have been counted.

An unofficial count by a local monitoring group shows the more militant Democratic Party of Kosovo, led by Hashim Thaci, winning only two out of 13 municipalities.

Official results Monday

The first official results are not expected until Monday, and the final list of winners of the 920 seats on 30 municipal councils will not be ready until at least a week later, election officials said.

Some people waited in line for hours to vote

The minority Serb population boycotted the election, but the ethnic Albanian turnout was high.

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians flocked to polling stations for Saturday's election.

Turnout was so high that some polling stations were forced to stay open after the official closing time of 1900 local time (1700 GMT), with long queues of people waiting to vote.

Officials with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE), which organised the polls, said some staff had failed to turn up for work on polling day, causing delays.

Enthusiastic electorate

The OSCE at times relied on the more than 40,000 Nato-led peacekeepers and United Nations police to hold back crowds.

Mr Rugova's party claims it won an outright majority

But the UN governor of Kosovo put a positive spin on the delays.

"The only problems were problems of success," Bernard Kouchner told reporters.

"People of Kosovo, today you have made me proud. You voted peacefully, with dignity and tolerance and hope for the future," he said.

'Incomplete and complex'

Mr Kouchner admitted there had been disappointments.

The electoral register appeared to be incomplete and many voters - including the wife of LDK leader Mr Rugova - were turned away because their names were not on the rolls.

The procedure was also criticised as too complex, with some elderly people unable to figure out ballot forms.

Serb boycott

Although turnout was high, at between 80% and 90%, only 1,000 Serbs registered to vote, compared with more than 900,000 ethnic Albanians.

An estimated 100,000 Serbs live in Kosovo.

Serbs fear the ballot will loosen Kosovo's ties to Yugoslavia and argue that only Belgrade - which still officially has sovereignty over Kosovo - has the right to call elections.

Posters of a candidate who was a former guerrilla fighter

The UN administration said it could appoint representatives to local councils in Serb areas before arranging possible by-elections early next year.

The new government in Yugoslavia has condemned the polls, with President Vojislav Kostunica saying they were "unacceptable" because they were "not based on the laws of Serbia."

The province has been run by the UN since Nato's bombing campaign in June 1999, which followed a Serb crackdown in the province.