The results are not final until they are approved by a separate election fraud watchdog, which has called for a recount of about 10 percent of polling stations.

With complete votes tallied, President Hamid Karzai continued to hold lead in partial results from the fraud-tainted presidential elections.

The incumbent, who has received 54.62 percent of the ballots, is followed by Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who has 27.75 percent of the votes.

24,621 (100 percent) of polling stations have been tallied as of Sept. 16, the number of total votes calculated is 5,918,741, with valid ballots working out at 5,662,758.

Daud Ali Najafi, chief electoral officer of the IEC, told a media conference at the scenic Pear Continental Hotel that invalid votes numbered 173,200. As many as 82,783 votes went to the candidates who had opted out of the presidential race.

Hamed Karzai has won 3,093,256 votes, Dr. Abdullah 1,571,581 and Ramazan Bashardost 520,627 (9.2 percent).

Ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, in the fourth slot, has bagged 155,343 votes (2.74 percent), followed by Mirwais Yasini with 50,461.

Shahnawaz Tanai has polled 33,544 ballots and Dr. Frozan Fana 24,279. The rest of the candidates together polled 213, 667 ballots.

According to Independent Election Commission, out of the 15295018 eligible voters, 5918741, almost 38.7 percent cast their ballots in the elections. In male voters, the turnout is 58.42 and 38.75 is female turnout while 2.73 kuchis cast their votes.

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