Afghan Chief Electoral Officer Daud Ali Najafi (R, front) speaks during a press conference in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, Aug. 26, 2009. The sitting Afghan president Hamid Karzai is keeping on lead over major rival Abdullah Abdullah in Afghan presidential election as the Independent Election Commission (IEC) Wednesday released more partial results.
The sitting Afghan president Hamid Karzai is keeping on lead over major rival Abdullah Abdullah in Afghan presidential election as the Independent Election Commission (IEC) Wednesday released more partial results.
Karzai has won 422,000 votes, or 44.8 percent, out of 940,000 counted while Abdullah received 331,000, or 35.1 percent, chief electoral officer Daud Najafi told a press conference.
When the first partial result came on Tuesday, Karzai had a lead of only 2 percentage point over Abdullah.
Former Planning Minister Ramazan Bashardost took the third place with 108,000 votes, or 11.5 percent, the chief electoral officer said.
IEC said about one million votes have been counted, based on 17.2 percent of the polling stations nationwide, and among them, about 60,000 were invalid.
