The sitting Afghan President Hamid Karzai widened the lead against his main rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah by having obtained 48.6 percent of the ballots as the election body announced another batch of partial results of presidential elections on Sunday.

File photo taken on Aug.13 shows Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks in Kabul.[Xinhua Photo]

"Mr. Hamid Karzai has secured 2,089,179 votes out of some 4.3 million votes counted so far and is in lead while Mr. Abdullah Abdullah by bagging 1,361,247 votes is in second," Chief electoral commission Daud Ali Najafi told a news conference.

He also said that Ramazan Bashardost had secured the third position by wining 457,909 votes.

The outcome is the result of votes tallied from 18,877 or 74.2 percent out of some 26,000 polling stations across the country.

Afghanistan's second presidential election in the post-Taliban country was held amid tight security on Aug. 20 but the final result is expected to be announced on Sept. 17 possibly after examination of complaints.

The benchmark election in the war-torn country has marred with fraud and according to electoral complaint commission is had received more than 2,000 complaints and dozens of them can sway the election's outcome.

Karzai's main challenger Abdullah Abdullah who has lodged dozens of complaints, accusing state machinery of involvement in backing the sitting president on the voting day told newsmen on Saturday that "there was widespread fraud by government with the support of IEC."

Meantime, Abdullah asked the electoral body to stop announcing preliminary results, scheduled to be disclosed on Sept. 7, because the figures released so far are "highly suspicious."

(Xinhua News Agency September 7, 2009)