The United Nations (UN) mission in Afghanistan warned there are "no winners" yet in the country's presidential contest, as election officials released a tally showing Karzai with 54 percent and challenger Abdullah Abdullah with 28 per cent.
The Independent Election Commission has now released results from 93 per cent of polling stations. Five per cent of votes have not been counted. The rest have been quarantined for suspected fraud.
The standings were little changed from the last results issued Tuesday.
slow count
The agonisingly slow count comes amid charges of ballot stuffing, fictitious polling stations and phantom voters.
If Karzai maintains his current lead in the count, he will win the election outright. If his percentage drops below 50 per cent, he will have to face Abdullah in a runoff.
The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has the power to throw out suspicious ballots, and has already invalidated the results in scores of voting stations in southeastern Afghanistan, Karzai's political base.
It has called for recounts and audits in hundreds of other polling stations in the same region.
investigations
Karzai's lead is almost certain to shrink, as the UN-backed commission completes investigations of hundreds of allegations of fraud.
The key is whether it tosses out enough votes to require a runoff.
Daoud Ali Najafi, chief electoral officer of the Afghan-run election commission, told reporters that his group would sit down with the complaints commission Sunday to work out a timetable for completing their work.
Najafi has previously said the process of counting votes could take two to three months.
The results will not be certified as final until the complaints commission's investigations are complete.
"There are no winners in this election yet," said Aleem Siddique, a UN spokesman.
"Afghanistan's election commission still has to conduct a partial recount from suspect districts. The election commission is also required to file annul returns from polling stations where there is clear evidence of irregularities, as ordered by the Electoral Complaints Commission. Only after these actions have been taken can any provisional results be finalised," he said.
The fraud allegations and delays could threaten Afghanistan's political stability at a time of rising Taliban violence and an increased United States military presence.
The country's top vote monitoring group, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, said in a statement it was "imperative" that Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission - the body overseeing the election - "highlight that the announced results are preliminary" and are subject to decisions by the complaints commission.