Afghanistan to announce preliminary results of presidential election

Afghanistan will announce the preliminary results of its landmark presidential election Saturday, with the final numbers to be confirmed next month.
Some seven million Afghans went to the polls on April 5 to choose a successor to outgoing President Hamid Karzai. It will be the country's first democratic transfer of presidential power.
As of Thursday, with just over four-fifths of the votes counted, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah was in the lead with 43.8% of the vote, the country's Independent Election Commission said.

At the time, Ashraf Ghani, with 32.9% of the vote, was in second place while Zalmai Rasoul was in third place with 11.1% of the vote.
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Photos: Afghanistan election Photos: Afghanistan election
The final results will be declared on May 14.
If no candidate wins 50% or more of the vote, a second round of voting will be held.

Leading contenders

Abdullah and Ghani were seen as the front-runners going into the April 5 ballot.
Abdullah, who is associated with the Tajik ethnic group, is partnered with Mohammad Mohaqeq, a leader of the Hazara ethnic group, and he also has a Pashtun on the ticket.
An eye doctor by training, Abdullah became Afghanistan's foreign minister under Karzai. He ran against him in 2009 but dropped out to protest what he saw as large-scale voter fraud. He is considered to be relatively liberal and has made at least one public statement in support of women's rights.
Ghani, who earned his doctorate at Columbia University in the U.S., is from the Pashtun ethnic group. His running mate is Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leader of the Uzbek ethnic group.
Ghani was the country's finance minister under Karzai.
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Security issue

Security will be a key issue for whoever is elected president.
A series of deadly attacks marked the run-up to the vote, and Kabul was again rocked by violence Thursday when at least three American medical workers in the capital were shot by a policeman guarding a hospital.
NATO troops are scheduled to draw down from Afghanistan by the end of the year.
Karzai, who is constitutionally required to step down after two terms in office, has refused to sign an agreement to keep international forces in Afghanistan, also known as the Status of Forces Agreement.
But the two leading presidential candidates have said they would sign it.