Afghanistan’s former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah is leading his closest rival Ashraf Ghani in the Afghan presidential election, partial results show.
Abdullah is leading with 41.9 percent; former finance minister Ghani has 37.6 percent; and Zalmai Rassoul ranks third with over nine percent.
This comes as ten percent of the vote has been counted. The Election Commission said the figures may change.
“Maybe today one candidate looks strong. Tomorrow, maybe another will pull ahead,” commission chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani said.
The commission also said it is too early to say if the election will go to a run-off. Nearly 60 percent of eligible Afghans took part in the vote.
Election authorities said unless there is an outright winner with more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be a run-off between the two leading candidates at the end of May.
Meanwhile, a supervisory body of Afghanistan’s election said it has received thousands of reports of violations related to presidential vote.
The final result is not expected for weeks as ballot boxes have to be returned to the capital, Kabul, from remote corners of the country.
The election was held amid tight security in 6,000 polling stations across Afghanistan. Taliban militants had pledged to disrupt the balloting, warning the people against voting.
The elections came ahead of the planned 2014 withdrawal of US-led foreign troops from Afghanistan.
Violence continues to plague Afghanistan despite the presence of thousands of foreign forces, more than 12 years after the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.
JR/PR
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