Karzai keeps on leading Afghan presidential polls

The incumbent Afghan president Hamid Karzai has been leading the partial results of the August 20 held presidential election as on Monday he again tops his rivals.

"Out of 2,869,562 valid votes counted so far, Karzai has bagged 1,317,121 and thus is in the lead," chief electoral officer Daud Najafi told newsmen while releasing partial results of polls.

He also added that Karzai's main challenger Abdullah Abdullah has won 954,256 ballots, securing the second position while Ramazan Bashardost, stood in the third by lagging 359,214 votes.

The return announced Monday, Najafi added, is based on the votes from 47.81 percent of some 27,000 polling stations.

Afghanistan's second presidential election in the post-Taliban country was held amid tight security as the Taliban insurgents vowed to derail it.

The militants, in addition to firing rockets and carrying out suicide attacks on the voting day, chopped off the ears and nose of an ordinary voter in southern Uruzgan province.

They also cut off the fingers of two more persons who cast their votes on the election day.

However, the election has been marred by fraud and malpractice, as the candidates particularly those contesting Karzai have lodged over 2,000 complaints with the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).

The election body began releasing partial results on August 25 and since the process is going slowly, the announcing of final results, according to Najafi, may take a couple of weeks more.