BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) -- Azerbaijan's ruling party took an early lead Monday in a crucial parliamentary election that many hoped would at last be free and fair, and the opposition vowed to fight to overturn what it called fraudulent results.The vote was closely watched for signs of improvement on flawed past elections that sparked violence and destabilized the oil-rich, strategically located ex-Soviet republic.With votes counted in 28 percent of constituencies, the Central Election Commission reported early Monday that 58 candidates from the ruling New Azerbaijan Party were in the lead, followed by 30 independents and four candidates from the opposition Musavat party.An exit poll conducted by the Mitofsky, Edison Media and CESSI organizations showed candidates of the ruling party winning 30 of the 125 seats and "leading-too close to call," in 26 other races.It was unclear who sponsored the exit poll, which opposition figures alleged was being conducted under government auspices.The U.S. government sponsored another exit poll as a check on the official count. Its figures were expected to be released, candidate by candidate, throughout the night, but it did not list candidates' affiliation. A full list of candidates and their affiliations could not immediately be obtained from the election commission.Hundreds of foreign observers fanned out across the country to watch the vote and follow the count. Domestic observers stayed in polling stations throughout the day.The opposition had said it would wait until after the foreign observers' statements to make its own assessment of the fairness of the election. But on Sunday night, Ali Kerimli, one of three main opposition leaders, said the voting was "clearly falsified.""These elections could not reflect the will of the Azerbaijani people," he said.He said reports were coming in of opposition members of local election commissions being detained.The deputy chairman of the Musavat party, Vurgun Eyub, said seven opposition party officials had been detained in a station in the Surahani district outside Baku, and that opposition observers had been thrown out of 23 stations just before the polls closed. The reports could not immediately be confirmed independently.The executive secretary of the ruling party, Ali Akhmadov, pronounced the elections "transparent, just and democratic." He said that whatever violations were recorded were not enough to affect the results.The uneven campaign saw some opposition rallies banned and its activists beaten and detained. About one-quarter of the candidates originally registered to compete withdrew from the race in the last few weeks.Still, the opposition expressed hope that the balloting could lead to change."I know that in any case, today is the beginning of a drastic democratic transformation," Musavat Party leader Isa Gambar said after casting his ballot.Final turnout was 46.83 percent, according to the Central Election Commission.The United States has a strong interest in stability in the Caspian Sea nation, which sits on a strategically critical axis between Russia and Iran.The election pitted President Ilham Aliev's New Azerbaijan Party against the Azadliq (Freedom) coalition, the New Policy bloc of technocrats, and an array of smaller parties and independent candidates. Some 1,541 candidates vied for places in the 125-seat parliament.After casting his ballot at a school decorated with a portrait of his late father, who led Azerbaijan both in Soviet times and independence, Aliev said the campaign had been fair. He pledged that "the process of democratization would continue after these elections."Alleged coup plotThe independent Center for Election Monitoring, a domestic group funded by international grants, said that at some polling places, election workers were not marking voters' thumbs with invisible ink.Center representative Anar Mammadli said officials at some polling places were openly supporting specific candidates.An Associated Press reporter saw an election commission in a village just outside Baku refuse entry to two young men whose names were on voter registration rolls because they used their foreign travel passports instead of domestic ID as supporting documents.Matilda Bogner, the Baku-based representative of Human Rights Watch, said she had received credible reports of multiple voting and of police taking voters in a bus from one Baku polling station to another to cast ballots.A six-person delegation that presented itself as a group of independent U.S. observers pronounced the election transparent, and it was given prominent coverage in a live broadcast on state television. The U.S. Embassy emphasized, however, that the delegation did not represent the United States.Less than three weeks before the vote, Aliev's government announced the discovery of an alleged coup plot led by Rasul Guliyev, an Azadliq leader in exile. Several government ministers and other high-ranking officials were jailed.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.