A female candidate given little hope of victory was on Monday set to defeat the front-running pro-Kremlin figure in leadership elections for the rebel Georgian region of South Ossetia.

In a major surprise, ex-education minister Alla Dzhioyeva polled 56.7 percent of the run-off against the pre-election favourite Anatoly Bibilov who won 40 percent, the central election commission said, quoting partial results.

But amid growing tensions over the unexpected outcome, the supreme court of the little-recognised statelet earlier said results could not be published as Bibilov's party had alleged violations and it must investigate the claims.

Despite the ruling, the central election commission still went ahead and announced the latest results -- based on 74 out of 85 polling stations -- that showed Dzhioyeva was heading for victory.

The official local news agency quoted the head of the election commission as saying it had not been officially notified of the supreme court decision and had only heard about it on television.

However, almost a day after polls closed it has still not published the complete results. The run-off was called after an inconclusive first round earlier this month.

Bibilov said that according to his information he was in the lead and also accused his opponent's supporters of crowding polling stations on election day to put pressure on voters.

Dzhioyev meanwhile appeared on South Ossetian television and urged the security forces not to give in to what she described as "provocations".

And in a sign that the final results could be delayed by a prolonged legal wrangle, the head of the South Ossetian supreme court Atsamaz Bichenov said the court would only review the complaint by Bibilov on Tuesday.

Whoever wins in the end will not enjoy wide recognition as the "president" of South Ossetia, since the region is recognised as independent only by Russia and a handful of far-flung states after Moscow's 2008 war with Tbilisi.

The West, which insists South Ossetia is an integral part of Georgia, has condemned the elections as illegitimate. Georgia said there could not be elections on a territory which hosted thousands of Russian soldiers.

"These are not elections. This is an occupied territory," Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri said at a news conference in Prague.

Nonetheless, the failure of Bibilov to sweep the run-off is a major turnaround given he was supported by outgoing leader Eduard Kokoity and had the backing of the Kremlin, South Ossetia's only significant patron.

In an apparent attempt to bolster Bibilov's position ahead of the vote, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met the candidate in southern Russia last week.

Kokoity had not bothered to make any secret of whom he wanted to win the election, telling a Russian newspaper that a female leader was an unimaginable prospect.

"We have good relations with women in our society. But the Caucasus are the Caucasus," he told Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The size of the electorate in tiny South Ossetia is itself controversial.

While the rebel authorities say its total population is around 70,000, Georgian officials argue that the figure is no more than 15,000 due to the expulsion of ethnic Georgians and migration.