Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has taken a wider lead in the race for the country's top office, according to vote tallies released Saturday, CNN reported today. The incumbent has 940,558 votes, with his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, garnering 638,924 votes. Ramazan Bashardost was running third with 277,404 votes, said Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission. Thirty-five percent of the votes have been counted in the August 20 ballot. Final results are not expected until September. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of votes, there will be a runoff between the top two contenders, most likely in mid-October. Karzai has 46 percent and Abdullah 31 percent of the 2.03 million votes deemed valid so far by election officials.
