Kabul, Aug 25 (DPA) A partial vote count in Afghanistan's presidential election has shown incumbent Hamid Karzai narrowly ahead with about 40.6 percent of the ballots, the Independent Election Commission said Tuesday.

Ranking a close second was his former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah with 38.9 percent, the commission said.

It released the results from about 10 percent of the polling stations from Thursday's election. The 524,444 ballots came from 21 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

'I want to emphasise, that these are partial results,' Chief Electoral Officer Daoud Ali Najafi said. 'They could change tomorrow or they could change the day after tomorrow.'

The commission has said it expected to release the final results around Sep 17, but should the trend seen Tuesday continue, a runoff between Karzai and Abdullah would be necessary.

A candidate must achieve a majority of the votes to win outright in the first round of voting, in which 30 people ran. Otherwise, a second round is planned at the beginning of October.