Timor-Leste election commission said here Thursday that Jose Ramos-Horta is leading in Timor-Leste's presidential election with nearly half of all ballots counted.

Presidential candidate Jose Ramos-Horta has won 70 percent of the votes with nearly half of all ballots counted, spokesperson of the electoral commission Maria Angelina Lopes Sarmento announced here Thursday.

Around 47 percent of the total votes have already been counted in 13 districts across the tiny nation so far, the spokesperson told reporters.

"Jose Ramos-Horta leads for the time being," she said, adding, based on the data, the Nobel price winner Horta could be the winner of the presidential election.

"The provisional result shows that although some districts are still in the tabulation process but the different number of votes obtained between candidates number one (Francisco Guterres Lu Olo) and number two (Jose Ramos-Horta) is very different. The difference is around fifty to eighty percent," she told a press conference here.

The two presidential candidates, former guerrilla fighter and chairman of the parliament Guterres and incumbent Prime Minister Horta, competed on Wednesday's run-off election, as none of all the candidates in the first round got more than 50 percent of votes in April.

Guterres obtained the highest votes on the April's first round of 27.89 percent and his rival Horta at the second position with 21.81 percent.

Guterres, nominated by the biggest leading party of Fretelin while Horta an independent candidate.

Source: Xinhua