PESHAWAR, Oct 18: Afghan President Hamid Karzai continued to maintain his lead over his rival candidates in the presidential elections.
However, his overall gain shrank to a little over 60 per cent in the 21 per cent votes counted till Monday.
According to preliminary results posted on a website of Joint Electoral Management Body of Afghanistan, of the total 1,682,090 votes counted by 18:13 Afghanistan's Time, Mr Karzai had polled 1,030,447 votes, that is 61.3per cent of the total valid votes.
Though still comfortably placed to win the required over 50 per cent votes, Mr Karzai's overall lead has dropped from the previous 79 per cent last week against his close rival and former cabinet colleague, Younus Qanooni.
So far 20.9 per cent of the votes have been counted. Mr Qanooni was trailing way behind with 315,672 votes polled in favour or 18.8 per cent. Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum was trailing at third position with 139,480 votes or 8.3 per cent of the total votes counted so far.
