RIYADH, Feb 12: Islamist candidates, apparently backed by religious leaders, have emerged triumphant bloc in the capital in the Kingdom's landmark municipal elections held on Thursday.

Some 73.6 per cent registered voters had turned out to cast their votes in the first phase of elections held last Thursday in Riyadh and adjoining areas, preliminary official figures released said.

In Riyadh, the turnout was 65 per cent, while the number of voters who turned out in the outskirts reached 82.3 per cent, the Elections Commission said.

Some 140,000 men, or some 30 per cent of eligible voters, had however registered themselves to vote.

The preliminary list of winners was announced late Friday at a press conference by Prince Mansoor ibn Miteb, chairman of the Election Commission. Prince Mansoor said the winning candidates for the seven seats of Riyadh city council were Abdullah Al-Suweilam, Suleiman Al-Rashoudi, Tareq Al-Kassabi, Abdul-Aziz Al-Omari, Omar Basudan, Ibrahim Quaid and Misfer Al-Bawardi.

One of the official complaints to the local election commission said that some candidates were misleading voters by telling them they were "approved and blessed by Muslim scholars in the Kingdom as the ideal candidate for the community."

The complaint also said that the list of the so-called "blessed people" was distributed via SMS text messages on Thursday morning, hours before balloting started.

The dissemination of the messages was done through a private company financed by one of the candidates who happened to win a municipal seat.

Several losing candidates said the names of at least six of the seven winners had been on a list distributed by mobile phone and the Internet, which suggested they had Islamist backing.

"I don't know them personally ... But they had a religious character to them," Zafer al Yami, one of the defeated candidates, said while talking to newsmen.