Afghan opponents both claim poll victory

PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai and top election challenger Abdullah Abdullah positioned themselves yesterday as the winner of Afghanistan’s presidential poll, one day after millions of Afghans braved dozens of militant attacks to cast ballots.

Partial preliminary results won’t be made public before Tuesday, as Afghanistan and the dozens of countries with troops and aid organisations in the country wait to see who will lead the troubled nation for the next five years. The next president faces an agenda filled with crises: rising insurgent violence, rampant corruption and a huge narcotics trade.

Claims of early victory by Karzai and Abdullah were an attempt to win the expectations game and officials with the country’s Independent Election Commission said it was too early for any such declarations. Counting at individual polling sites has been completed, but ballots are now being sent to Kabul, election officials said.

Abdullah’s camp said it was investigating claims of fraud across southern provinces where Karzai would expect to do well.

“As far as my campaign is concerned, I am in the lead, and that’s despite the rigging which has taken place in some parts of the country,” Abdullah said. He claimed government officials interfered with ballot boxes, and in some places blocked monitors from inspecting boxes. Abdullah said there “is a likelihood” that neither he nor Karzai got more than 50% of the vote, a circumstance that would trigger a run-off. Though officials previously said preliminary results would be announced today, Daoud Ali Najafi, the chief electoral officer, said yesterday that results won’t be made public until Tuesday. Karzai’s campaign spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the campaign believes “we are well ahead”.

Omar also said a second round would be “logistically, financially and also politically” problematic for the people of Afghanistan, though the election commission has said it is ready to hold a second round if needed.

“Our prediction is that the election will not go to the second round... we will hopefully be able to win the elections in the first round,” Omar said. The International Republican Institute (IRI), a US-based nonprofit organisation that had about 30 election observers in Afghanistan, said the vote was at a “lower standard” than the 2004 and 2005 elections, but that “the process so far has been credible”. Richard S Williamson, the IRI’s delegation leader in Afghanistan and a former US ambassador to the UN, said the election “was defined by violence”.

International officials have predicted Afghanistan’s second-ever direct presidential vote would be imperfect, but expressed hope that Afghans would accept the outcome as legitimate – a key component of US president Barack Obama’s strategy for the war.