Abdullah leads in Afghan presidential election

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah was leading in the partial results, the country's Independent Election Commission (IEC) chairman announced Sunday.

"The IEC had tallied 10 percent of the votes from 26 provinces and the partial results were announced Sunday," IEC chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani said.

The counting of votes cast in the presidential election started April 6 and will end April 20.

"Abdullah Abdullah secured 41.9 percent of partial results followed by Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai who received 37.6, and Zulmai Rassoul 9.9 percent of the results," Nouristani said.

The results may change in future as the IEC is in the process of counting the votes, he added.

On April, 5 more than 7 million Afghans out of 12 million eligible voters cast their votes to elect a successor to the outgoing President Hamid Karzai for the next five years in the first transfer of power through polling in the country's history, Xinhua reported.

Up to 36 percent of the voters were women.

The number of presidential candidates has dropped to eight after the withdrawal of three contenders from the race, and over 2,500 candidates ran for 458 provincial councils seats in 34 provinces, including 96 seats for women.

The Independent Election Commission has set aside April 7-17 period for receiving complaints about the presidential elections. Under the Afghan law, official result cannot be announced until serious complaints are adjudicated.

The preliminary results will come out April 24 and the final result will be announced in mid-May.

If no candidate garners 50 percent plus one vote, a run-off between the top two candidates will be held May 28.