Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis may be forced to give up his role as chairman but is set to win re-election to the bank's board by a wide margin, the Wall Street Journal said.

Citing people familiar with the preliminary results of shareholder votes ahead of the bank's annual meeting on Wednesday, the newspaper said a proposal that would force Lewis to give up his seat as chairman was too close to call.

The paper said that as of Tuesday, with about 75 percent of shares outstanding counted, slightly more than 50 percent favored splitting the chairman and CEO positions.

We expect he will be CEO, a director and we hope chairman, BofA spokesman Robert Stickler told the paper adding that the bank would respect the shareholders' decision.

Separately, the Journal said BofA may have to raise billions of dollars of fresh capital after preliminary results of a stress test from U.S. regulators.

Pension funds and other investors controlling more than 172 million shares of BofA, or 2.6 percent of the total, have said they intend to vote for a boardroom shake-up, the paper said, citing its own tally.

A BofA spokesman did not immediately return a Reuters email seeking comment.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; editing by John Stonestreet)

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