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KABUL (Pajhwok): Unofficial results obtained by Pajhwok Afghan News suggest none of the eight presidential runners will be able to reach the magic figure of 50+1 percent of votes.

Countrywide voting in the landmark presidential and provincial council polls began at 7.00am and came to a close at 5.00pm after a one-hour extension in the stipulated time. 

The voting phase of Afghan presidential elections has drawn to a close.

The polls come at a time of increased uncertainty for the central Asian nation as American troops look to withdraw from a 13-year occupation that began after the 9/11 attacks. President Hamid Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the American occupation, is bound by term limits, and will step down after this term is completed. The build up to the election has been marred by violence as the Taliban stepped up its campaign to dissuade Afghans from voting in an election that, it thinks, is a sham.

Afganistán ha celebrado este domingo sus terceras elecciones presidenciales desde la caída en 2001 del régimen talibán, y los primeros indicios apuntan a un elevado índice de participación entre los cerca de 13 millones de posibles votantes.

Los más de 6.000 colegios electorales abiertos en Afganistán han cerrado las puertas a las 17:00 hora local (12:30 GMT), aunque muchos de ellos han mantenido la actividad hasta que todas las personas que llegaron antes del cierre pudieron depositar el voto.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono denied that he did not intentionally meet a recent summons from the Elections Monitoring Agency (Bawaslu) as he had never received  an official summons from the agency, says presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha. 

“As of today, April 5, the President has not received a summons from the Bawaslu in connection to the allegation of the use of state money to finance campaigns,” Julian said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Saturday. 

With the country’s main opposition party seemingly headed for victory in both the legislative election on Wednesday and the presidential election on July 9, observers say the euphoria needs to be tempered by a rational look back at its track record in government.

Ade Irawan, the coordinator of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said on Friday that voters were quickly forgetting the “colorful past and track record” of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) when its chairwoman, Megawati Soekarnoputri, was president from 2001 to 2004.

As the Golkar Party readies itself to seize on the upcoming legislative election, political analysts remind voters to keep in mind its contentious past.

“Wasn’t it nice in Suharto’s time?” asked Aburizal Bakrie, Golkar Party’s chairman and presidential candidate during his campaigning in Banjarmasin.

In a bid to win more votes, the Golkar Party draws the masses to reminisce on the “good old time” when Suharto was in power, a move met with harsh criticism by an array of political analysts.

Prior to the March 30 municipal elections, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had adopted strong anti-Western rhetoric, further tarnishing his already damaged image in the United States and Europe, as well as straining Ankara’s relations with the West. The question being asked by Western diplomats and Turkey observers is whether Erdogan, to normalize ties, will tone it down after the strong electoral results secured by his Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Melih Gökçek from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has begun his fifth term as the mayor of Ankara on April 5.