KATHMANDU (AFP) -- Nepal's Maoists have maintained a strong lead in the count from last week's historic elections, officials said Tuesday as the tally edged slowly towards the halfway mark.

Up for grabs are 601 seats in an assembly that will decide the impoverished country's political future and likely abolish the monarchy.
Out of these, 196 seats have been allocated, with the Maoists taking 112. Their nearest rival, the centrist Nepali Congress, has won 30 seats, the election commission said.
A further 44 seats that will be decided by the first-past-the-post system are still being tallied, with the Maoists poised to take the lion's share of these, too.
Officials said counting for the 335 seats to be awarded by proportional representation had also begun, with the results -- based on roughly eight percent of returns -- so far showing a more equal spread among the main parties.
However, a clear trend from this part of the count was not expected to be known for several days, given that ballot boxes from outlying areas have yet to reach the capital.
""Proportional representation counting will be over by next week. Only then will the total number be divided to percentages and the seats given to the parties,"" election official Dilliram Bastola told AFP.
The remaining 26 seats in the Constituent Assembly will be allocated by the interim government due to be formed after all counting has been completed.
The April 10 elections were a central plank of a 2006 peace deal under which the Maoists agreed to end their decade-long insurgency -- which left at least 13,000 people dead -- and enter mainstream politics.