IEC spokesman Noor Muhammad Noor told Pajhwok Afghan News as many as 3,300 hopefuls ran for provincial council seats in all the 34 provinces of the country.

He added the IEC officials were unable to complete the vote tally in Kandahar, Paktia, Nangarhar and Ghazni provinces due to problems in the counting process.

"All results will be announced as soon as possible after the problems are solved," Noor added.

In the presidential elections, the incumbent President Hamid Karzai is leading the preliminary vote count in a single round. The incumbent, having received 54.62 percent of the ballots, is followed by Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.

All (24,621) polling stations were tallied as of Sept. 16; the number of total votes calculated is 5,918,741, with valid ballots working out at 5,662,758. Karzai has won 3,093,256 votes, Dr. Abdullah 1,571,581 and Ramazan Bashardost 520,627 (9.2 percent).

Ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, in the fourth slot, has bagged 155,343 votes (2.74 percent), followed by Mirwais Yasini with 50,461.

According to IEC, out of the 15295018 eligible voters, 5918741 (almost 38.7 percent) cast their ballots in the elections. Among male voters, the turnout is 58.42 and 38.75 is the female turnout. Some 2.73 Kochis cast their votes.

frm/ma/mud