Abdullah leads Afghan poll count

Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah retained a clear lead in the latest Afghan presidential election results released Thursday, but he remained below the threshold needed for a decisive first-round victory. Abdullah has secured 43.8 percent of the vote, with his main rival Ashraf Ghani on 32.9 percent, election officials said, after about 80 percent of ballots were counted. If no candidate gains more than 50 percent, a second-round run-off between the two leading names is scheduled for May 28. "With the percentage of votes (still to be counted), I suspect there will not be a winner in the first round, but I cannot say decisively," Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, head of the Independent Election Commission, said, according to AFP.