Karzai ahead after first million votes counted

Afghanistan’s interim leader, Hamid Karzai, held a 45% lead today in the preliminary results of the country’s first presidential election, though a chief rival said the validity of the vote was in doubt.

The US-backed incumbent’s closest challenger, former Education Minister Yunus Qanooni, claimed to have evidence of organised fraud in favour of Karzai and that the UN-Afghan electoral commission was ignoring his complaints.

“If his excellency Mr Karzai, my old friend, succeeds in a fair and transparent election, I will congratulate him and cooperate with him,” Qanooni said. “But if the result is fraudulent, the legitimacy of this election will be in question.”

Millions of Afghans braved Taliban threats and poor weather to cast their ballots on October 9, after 25 years of fighting.

Observers and officials acknowledge teething troubles, especially with ink used to mark people’s hands to prevent them voting more than once. But Karzai’s opponents allege boxes were stuffed with votes for Karzai in several provinces.

With 1.04 million votes counted by this morning, Karzai, Afghanistan’s stop-gap president since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, had captured 62.6%.

That put him on course for the simple majority needed to avoid a run-off.

About 13% of the total ballots cast have now been counted, drawn from 29 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Qanooni, who served as Karzai’s interior and education minister, was trailing with only 17.7%. Ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum was third with 9.3%.

Almost all of Karzai’s 15 opponents have complained of cheating to a panel of three foreign experts set up to head off their threat to boycott the results.

Establishing the panel delayed the start of counting, and Qanooni has forecast the figures will turn in his favour as more votes are counted.

Yet four of the five provinces where the count has yet to start are in southern and eastern Afghanistan where Karzai is expected to win. Also, there are no results yet from the 850,000 refugee voters in Iran and Pakistan.

Qanooni also complained his representatives were unable to monitor ballot boxes during transit from polling stations to counting centres. Organisers acknowledge some boxes arrived with broken seals, but say they were damaged by clumsy handling.

“These violations and cheating were organised in advance,” he said.

Few independent observers believe that Qanooni, a member of the ethnic Tajik minority, could command a country deeply fractured by years of tribal and ethnic warfare.

Karzai enjoys strong support among Afghanistan’s traditional rulers, the Pashtuns, and is seen as a bridge to its international backers and a leader untainted by its bloody past.

Official results are only expected by the end of this month, but this week it should be clear who has won the most votes.