KIGALI, Sept 16, 2008 (AFP) - Rwanda's ruling party won majority seats in direct parliamentary polls in which it faced little opposition, the electoral commission chief said Tuesday.

President Paul Kagame's Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) won 42 of the 53 seats contested in Monday's direct voting, while the Social Democratic Party took seven and the Liberal Party won four, Chrysologue Karangwa told reporters.

Twenty-seven lawmakers are to be elected in indirect voting between Tuesday and Thursday, with 24 seats reserved for women, two for youth representatives and one for a representative of the disabled.

In 2003, for the first parliamentary elections held in Rwanda since the genocide in which 800,000 people were massacred, the RPF secured 74 percent of the vote.