Both Karzai and Abdullah claim victory

Afghans are awaiting the result of Thursday's presidential election. An election official says preliminary results will be announced on August the 25th, but gave no exact date for the final result. Meanwhile, two main candidates have both declared victory.

Ballot counting continues.

The country's Independent Election Commission had initially said the preliminary result would be available on Saturday. This has now been pushed back to Tuesday.

IEC official Dawood Najafi said, "I request a little patience until we complete this procedure and announce the result."

On Friday, however, President Hamid Karzai's campaign chief claimed a single-round victory. He said Karzai had secured the outright majority needed to avoid an October run-off.

Waheed Omar, spokesman of Hamid Karzai's Presidential Campaign, said, "Our own assumption, based on all what we have heard and received and what we have seen so far, we are well ahead in the elections."