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Wednesday, August 26, 2009 KABUL: President Hamid Karzai and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah both have roughly 40 percent of the nationwide vote for president with 10 percent of ballots counted, the country's election commission said Tuesday.The commission said Karzai has 40.6 percent and Abdullah has 38.7 percent in the country's first official returns since the nation voted for president last Thursday.The early returns are based on only 10 percent of the country's ballots. The commission plans to release partial results each day the next several days. Final, certified results won't be made public until mid or late September.The commission said it had based the count on 524,000 valid votes after throwing out about 31,000. Less than 2 percent of Kandahar votes have been counted, and no votes in Helmand have been counted, the commission said. Karzai would expect to do well in both provinces, suggesting his returns could go higher.If neither Karzai or Abdullah gets more...

Saturday, August 22, 2009 KABUL: The two top candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election are claiming victory, although elections officials are saying it is too early to know who won this week's vote. Analysts say what appears to be an uneven voter turnout coupled with possible claims of fraud could have an impact on the credibility of the election. Election officials in Afghanistan are urging candidates to refrain from declaring victory, although that has not stopped the campaigns of incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his chief challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, from claiming a first-round win.Election officials say preliminary returns and accurate figures on turnout will not be available for days."In the provinces under high security threat level maybe the turnout was low. But there are many provinces where the participants were high. Now it's very difficult for us, because we could not receive the final figures from the provinces. That i...