Afghan presidential election: Live Report
Kabul (AFP) - 16:04 GMT - Tough job ahead - AFP is closing this Live Report on the preliminary result of the Afghan presidential election. To recap, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani look set to face each other in a second round run-off after coming first and second respectively.
The vote will choose a successor to outgoing President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power.
Whoever wins will face a daunting task of overseeing the fight against a resilient Taliban insurgency as 51,000 US-led troops depart this year, as well as strengthening an economy that relies on declining aid money. LIVE REPORT ENDS
15:36 GMT - View from Kabul - One of our Kabul based reporters has been testing reaction on the street following the results.
Zaki, an electrician from Kabul, said: "It would have been very good if there was winner in the first round, there will be extra costs for the second round elections."
Tamim, a taxi driver, added: "People will participate in second round voting as they did in first round, people are not afraid of security threats or any other issue."
15:36 GMT - Power brokers - Nuristani is clearly happy with the way the election has gone so far. "The election went pretty good, we are satisfied with it and I think we are prepared if it goes to the second round," he said.
Candidates who came behind Abdullah and Ghani could play ket roles in deciding whether second round run off is necessary. Zalmai Rassoul, who took just 11 percent of the vote and is widely believed to be Karzai's favoured candidate, could still play a key role in power-brokering before the next president is chosen, as could former Islamist warlord Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, who collected a seven percent.
15:35 GMT - Run-off - Given the expense and security issues Afghanistan faces election officials are keen to avoid a second round run-off if possible.
Another expensive and potentially violent election could be avoided by negotiations between the candidates in the coming weeks, but Abdullah has dismissed talks of a possible power-sharing deal.
Graeme Smith (@smithkabul), a Kabul-based senior analyst at International Crisis Group, has just tweeted the following: "Tonight's results, with Abdullah still 5% away from victory, will probably reduce the intensity of squabbles over fraud."
15:15 GMT - Turnout - The IEC's Nuristani said nearly seven million people voted in the April 5 election out of an estimated electorate of 13.5 million -- well above the 2009 turnout.
A key figure is female participation in the vote. Of those who went to the polls, 36 percent were female -- a figure likely to be seen an impressive sign of women's improving status in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative Muslim country.
15:10 GMT - Security and excitement - Our reporters covering the announcement in Kabul say there was a high level of security checks for the IEC's press conference, hardly surprising given the multiple attacks that the Taliban have launched in the capital in the run up to and during the polling process.
There was excitement too. After all, Afghanistan is on its way to its first democratic transfer of power.
15:06 GMT - Need to address complaints - The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has welcomed today's release of preliminary results.
"The Afghan electoral institutions... should also be commended for their efforts to protect the integrity of the election process and the votes of the people, while doing their utmost to work in accordance with the electoral timetable," said the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA Jan Kubis in a press release.
But there was also a warning. Kubis said Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission must now "carry out its obligations to address complaints, notably related to the preliminary results in a professional, expeditious and open manner".
15:02 GMT - Fraud - Afghan election officials are keen to avoid the kind of widespread allegations of fraud that marred the last election in 2009 which returned Hamid Karzai to power.
The 2009 election shook confidence in the multinational effort to develop Afghanistan and also marked a sharp decline in relations with the United States.
This time around votes involved in alleged ballot-box stuffing and other cheating have not been counted. Preliminary results were delayed by two days due to fraud investigations, with officials vowing to sift out all suspect votes before they were counted.
14:34 GMT - Breakdown - Abdullah secured 44.9 percent of the vote, with his main rival Ghani on 31.5 percent, according to the preliminary results.
The final official result is set to be announced on May 14 after a period for adjudication of hundreds of complaints over alleged fraud.
As no candidate gained more than 50 percent, a run-off between the two leading names is required under the Afghan constitution.
Nuristani said the run-off would be held on June 7.
Results
14:18 GMT - Abdullah leads - The results are out. Abdullah leads with Ghani in second place. Both will now face a run-off to decide who leads Afghanistan.
"Based on our results, it appears that the election goes to the second round," Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, head of the Independent Election Commission, told a press conference in Kabul.
13:53 GMT - Helicopter crash - AFP's bureau in London has just confirmed that a helicopter which crashed earlier today in Afghanistan killing five members of the US-led NATO force was a British chopper, citing the UK's Ministy of Defence.
The crash is the largest single loss of life for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since another NATO helicopter crashed in December after being hit in a Taliban insurgent attack. In line with NATO policy, the coalition has deferred casualty identification to national authorities.
The frontrunners
13:31 GMT - Ashraf Ghani - Ghani is a former World Bank economist and globally renowned intellectual, who has shed some of his wonkish image during his current campaign and is more favoured by the country's majority Pashtuns.
13:30 GMT - Abdullah Abdullah - Abdullah, who was born to an ethnic Pashtun father and a Tajik mother, is more associated with the northern Tajiks.
An ophthalmologist by training and a resistance fighter against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, he came second in the 2009 election to current President Hamid Karzai, in a vote that was internationally denounced as fraudulent.
13:22 GMT - Announcement expected soon - Welcome to AFP's Live Report on the announcement of the preliminary results of the Afghan presidential election. A press conference from the Independent Election Commission is expected to start in Kabul at 1330 GMT.
According to partial results released on Thursday, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah is ahead in early counting but below the 50-percent vote required to avoid a run-off.
Abdullah secured 43.8 percent of the vote, with his main rival Ashraf Ghani on 32.9 percent, after four-fifths of ballots were counted.
The final official result is set to be announced on May 14 after a period for adjudication of hundreds of complaints over alleged fraud.
If no candidate gains more than 50 percent, a run-off between the two leading names is scheduled for May 28.
