Afghan election workers carry ballot boxes and election materials on donkeys to deliver to polling stations.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP):The Afghanistan presidential elections are headed for a runoff after full preliminary results released yesterday showed the front-runners failed to win to a majority and avoid a second round of voting.
Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah garnered 44.9 per cent of the vote, followed by ex-Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai with 31.5 per cent, the election commission announced yesterday.
The candidates are vying to replace President Hamid Karzai, the only president Afghans have known since the 2001 United States-led invasion to topple the Taliban's hard-line Islamic regime.
"According to our findings, it seems that this election will go to the second round," said a spokesman for the election commission. "We have a tentative schedule of June 7 to start the second round."
The preliminary results are to be finalised on May 14 after investigations into fraud complaints. But those investigations are unlikely to invalidate enough votes to change the outcome that points to a second round. Electoral law requires a runoff between the top two candidates if no one gets a majority.
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