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.

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. [Zabi Tamanna/Xinhua]

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.

If no candidate can receive over 50 percent of the total ballots in the Aug. 20 election, a runoff will be held in October.

IEC said that the results will be updated daily and the official final result is expected on Sept. 17.

Karzai's Finance Minister, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, claimed on Monday that Karzai gained 68 percent of ballots so a runoff could not happen, but it was not confirmed by IEC.

Allegations of fraud have cast shadow on the election. Over 400 complaints have been filed with Afghan Electoral Complaint Commission, including some 40 serious enough to affect the results if confirmed, according to the commission.

A graph shows the percentage of votes counted by Afghan Election Commission in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, Aug. 26, 2009.[Zabi Tamanna/Xinhua]

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2009)