(Reuters) - The party of&nbsp;East&nbsp;Timor&nbsp;independence hero Xanana Gusm&atilde;o has won&nbsp;most&nbsp;votes&nbsp;in a&nbsp;parliamentary&nbsp;election, preliminary results in&nbsp;state&nbsp;media&nbsp;showed on Tuesday, boosting his chances of his return as premier and a new phase of&nbsp;opposition&nbsp;rule.
Gusm&atilde;o's National Congress for&nbsp;Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) won about 42% of ballots cast with 100% of the&nbsp;votes&nbsp;counted, according to&nbsp;election&nbsp;commission data carried by broadcaster Radio-Televis&atilde;o&nbsp;Timor&nbsp;Leste.
Reuters could not reach the&nbsp;election&nbsp;commission for confirmation on Tuesday.
The Revolution Front for an Independent&nbsp;Timor-Leste (FRETILIN), the party of Prime Minister Jos&eacute; Maria Vasconcelos, popularly known as Taur Matan Ruak, was second with about 26% of the&nbsp;votes, with the rest split among 15 parties.
Sunday's contest was the fifth&nbsp;parliamentary&nbsp;election&nbsp;since&nbsp;East&nbsp;Timor, also known as&nbsp;Timor-Leste, a country of 1.3 million people that gained full independence in 2002 after a quarter-century rule by neighbouring Indonesia.
The former Portuguese colony must now wait to see who will be chosen as prime minister by the newly formed legislature.
The&nbsp;election&nbsp;had been billed as a battle of two former resistance figures, CNRT's Gusm&atilde;o, 76, and FRETILIN's Mari Alkatiri, 73, with Gusm&atilde;o seen by analysts as the favourite.
Heavily dependent on its fast-depleting oil reserves for revenue, the half-island nation faces a challenge with poverty and diversifying its economy, which at $3.6 billion is one of Asia's smallest.
The&nbsp;election&nbsp;follows last year's victory in a presidential ballot for independence leader and Nobel laureate Jos&eacute; Ramos-Horta, also of the CNRT party.
Gusm&atilde;o, a former guerrilla leader, was&nbsp;East&nbsp;Timor's first president and served as prime minister from 2007 until his resignation from the post in 2015.
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(Reporting by Stanley Widianto in Jakarta; Editing by Martin Petty)

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East Timor opposition wins most votes in parliamentary election - state media