Halfway through: Abdullah Abdullah leads Ashraf Ghani by 11 percent after partial count

Abdullah Abdullah has 44.47 percent of votes after half the total was counted.

ISLAMABAD: Former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah is leading Ashraf Ghani in the country’s presidential election by more than 11 percent of votes, based on nearly 50 percent of the results. 

The Afghan electoral body responsible for the April 5 landmark presidential elections announced on Sunday partial results based on half of the votes.

After the second batch of votes were counted, Dr Abdullah Abdullah took the lead with 44.47 percent, while his close rival Dr Ashraf Ghani had 33.18 percent of the counted votes in his favour.

According to the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC), another front-runner, Dr Zalmai Rassoul, bagged 10.28 percent of nearly half of total votes.

The IEC Chairman Ahmed Yusuf Nuristani, while announcing the results at a news conference in Kabul, said the results are not final and change is possible in results as counting continues of the remaining 50 percent of votes.

The partial results are from 34 provinces and the complete results are scheduled to be declared on April 24.

The results posted on the IEC website showed that Jehadi leader Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf had secured nearly 7 percent of the vote, while Hizb-e-Islami leader Qutbuddin Hilal got 2.74 percent, former Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai got 1.61 percent and former Finance Minister Hedayat Amin Arsala got only 0.24 percent of the vote.