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Nearly complete but still preliminary - and controversial - results
show Afghanistan's incumbent as the winner in the country's
presidential election. However, President Hamid Karzai is going to have
a difficult time claiming a legitimate victory and his closest
challenger is not ready to concede.
In another trickle of
preliminary results released by election commissioners, President
Karzai retains his firm lead with more than 54 percent of the ballots.
Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah has 28 percent. Out of the
5.8 million votes deemed valid so far, the incumbent has three million
while the top challenger has just more than half that amount. Other
candidates are far behind with about 95 percent of all ballots tallied.
United Nations spokesman Aleem Siddque in Kabul tells VOA News that it is premature, however, to judge the outcome.
"The
game is far from over. There are no winners in this election yet. There
have been over 2,000 complaints made during this electoral process. And
it's imperative that those complaints are thoroughly investigated
before any provisional results can be finalized," said Siddque.
That
means a resolution is weeks - or possibly, months, away. The
U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission may end up putting into
quarantine hundreds of thousands of ballots until the major allegations
stemming from the August 20 election are resolved.
Asked at a
press conference in Kabul why the criteria for quarantined votes has
changed from 600 per ballot box to more than 1,000, chief electoral
officer Daoud Ali Najafi says the ECC just made this decision and the
Afghan government's Independent Election Commission agreed to it.
"Tomorrow
morning the IEC (Independent Election Commission) and ECC will meet
together to establish a procedure to implement the decision," he said.
A
delay in the final vote count is raising fears of further instability
in a country already divided by a Taliban insurgency and smoldering
ethnic tensions.
Staying in power, at least for the mean time,
is President Karzai. He enjoys support from his fellow Pashtuns, the
country's largest ethnic group.
Abdullah, of Tajik and Pashtun descent, is backed by Tajiks.
If
election authorities invalidate enough ballots to bring President
Karzai's total below a majority then he and Abdullah would face each
other in a run-off. But that would have to happen quickly before snow
fall would make many areas inaccessible for the winter.
The
political uncertainty comes as Afghanistan faces its worst violence
since the invasion that ousted the Taliban in late 2001.
Officials
say a roadside bomb in Uruzgan province, apparently meant to target
Afghan and foreign troops, struck two passenger cars Saturday killing
14 civilians. Another such explosion in Kandahar province killed six
civilians.
Also in Kandahar two Taliban suicide bombers attacked a government intelligence office killing one agent.
In
the northern part of Kunduz province, the U.S. military says, an
overnight raid by Afghan and coalition forces killed 11 militants who
were in possession of bomb-making material and rocket-propelled
grenades.
