LIMA, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Peru's general elections ended on Sunday with exit polls indicating a lead for the nationalist Ollanta Humala, as voters in the centre of the country were reportedly wounded by bomb explosions.

    The polling day began at 8:00 a.m. local time (1300 GMT) and ended at 4:00 p.m. (2100 GMT).

    Exit polls said former army commander Humala, of Peru's Nationalist Union Party, had won the highest number of votes, but still below the 50 percent plus one vote needed to win the nation's presidency outright in one round.

    The polls, which also showed the election was witnessing Peru's highest ever voter turnout, gave former president Alan Garcia, of the Aprist Party, and Lourdes Flores, of the National Alliance, a technical draw for second place.

    According to the polls, Humala has won between 29.2 percent and 30 percent of vote, and Flores and Garcia have each garnered between 24 percent and 25 percent.

    If the preliminary outcome is reflected in the official result, the two leading candidates will battle for the presidency again in a runoff to be held in 30 days. Surveys said Humala would lose if faced with either Garcia or Flores standing alone.

    Once elected, the president is due to take office on July 28 for a five-year term.

    Humala, 43, was jeered and pelted with stones and bottles earlier on Sunday, when he voted alongside his wife at the Ricardo Palma University in the Peruvian capital of Lima.

    He described the incident as an "ambush" organized by a bloc of enemies including Flores, Garcia and the outgoing president, Alejandro Toledo.

    In other violence, a bomb explosion in Huanuco, 450 km northeast of Lima, wounded a number of voters. The authorities said the Shining Path guerrilla was responsible for the attack.

    Also in Huanuco, witnesses said a group of people carrying guns and wearing balaclavas pulled drivers out of their cars and threatened to kill them if they voted.

    The government had deployed nearly 100,000 police to maintain security at the nation's polling stations.

    Former president Alberto Fujimori, who had tried to be recognized as a presidential candidate, was a notable absence from the election. He is in a Chilean jail, awaiting the outcome of an extradition case brought by the Peruvian government.

    A total of 212 election observers, including delegations from the Organization of American States and the European Parliament, monitored the elections.

    The country's National Office of Electoral Procedures said 16.4 million Peruvians had registered to elect a president, two vice-presidents, 120 legislators and 15 representatives for parliament. Enditem