KABUL, October 16 (AFP) - Early results in Afghanistan's landmark presidential election gave President Hamid Karzai 72 percent of the vote as counting resumed Saturday after a break for the first day of Ramadan.
With an estimated 2.6 percent of total votes counted by 5:30 pm (1300 GMT), Karzai was well ahead of former education minister Yunus Qanooni who had 12.8 percent, the Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) said on its website.
In third place with 6.9 percent of the vote was Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam, followed by ethnic Hazara military strongman Mohammed Mohaqeq on 2.1 percent.
Afghanistan's only female presidential candidate, Masooda Jalal, had 1.0 percent of the vote after a vigorous campaign to drum up support around the country with the lesser known Syed Ishaq Gilani, who also had 1.0 percent.
The 12 other presidential candidates all garnered less than one percent of the ballots after last Saturday's election.
The preliminary results are regarded with caution as Afghanistan is made up of 34 provinces with markedly different ethnic populations that could deliver very different results.
The initial count included votes from only 11 of the country's 34 provinces -- northern Balkh, Takhar and Kunduz provinces, eastern Wardak and Logar and Kapisa, western Herat, Paktia province in the southeast, southern Kandahar and Zabul and the capital Kabul.
An ethnic Pashtun, Karzai is widely seen as the favourite to win the country's first presidential election.
Vote-counting was delayed until Thursday following complaints of irregularities from several candidates, following by a one-day break on Friday for the start of the Muslim fasting month, Ramadan.