Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah increased his lead over chief rival Ashraf Ghani in the race to become Afghanistan's next president, the latest vote results showed Sunday, but still lacks the majority needed to become president. With nearly half the total ballots from all 34 provinces counted, the Afghan election commission reported that Abdullah leads with 1,536,133 votes, or 44.4 per cent. According to dpa, Ghani, a World Bank technocrat, received 1,146,251 votes, or 33.2 per cent.