Karzai will respect fraud probe but hopes to win: spokesman
AFP
KABUL- Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai hopes to win another five years in office but will wait for the results of investigations into electoral fraud, his campaign spokesman said Wednesday.
In preliminary results of the August 20 poll, announced by the Independent Election Commission (IEC), Karzai has 54.6 percent of total votes cast, putting him on course for victory.
His nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has 27.8 percent of the fraud-tainted vote.
The final result will not be announced until investigations into fraud allegations are complete, which officials have said could take two to three weeks.
"We are clearly ahead of the benchmark which is 50 percent, which is what a candidate is required to get in the first round," Karzai's campaign spokesman Waheed Omer told AFP.
"It seems we have that with a clear margin of 4.6 percent and we hope we will win the election.
"But obviously we respect the process and we know that these are not certified results. We will wait for the certified results and hopefully when the certified results are announced we will still be winning the elections," Omer said.
The election has been overshadowed by allegations of widespread fraud, with ballots from 2,500 polling stations across the country to be recounted by order of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).
The UN-backed ECC ordered the recount because of "convincing evidence of fraud" while European observers said almost a quarter of the votes could be tarnished.
The EU election observer mission said 1.5 million votes -- close to the margin between Adbullah and Karzai -- were suspect. Of those, 1.1 million were cast for Karzai, it said, and 300,000 for Abdullah.
"We have calculated 1.5 million suspicious votes," said Dimitra Ioannou, the deputy head of the European Union Election Observation Mission to Afghanistan.
Most of the questionable ballots are in Karzai's strongholds and if the recount pushes the incumbent's lead below 50 percent, the IEC would have to hold a run-off between the two leading candidates.
Karzai's office reacted with fury, issuing a statement damning the announcement as "partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution."
Abdullah's spokesman, Sayed Aqa Fazel Sancharaki, told AFP: "We do not accept these results at all."
He said Abdullah's camp would await the results of the investigations.
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The final result will not be announced until investigations into fraud allegations are complete, which officials have said could take two to three weeks.
"We are clearly ahead of the benchmark which is 50 percent, which is what a candidate is required to get in the first round," Karzai's campaign spokesman Waheed Omer told AFP.
"It seems we have that with a clear margin of 4.6 percent and we hope we will win the election.
"But obviously we respect the process and we know that these are not certified results. We will wait for the certified results and hopefully when the certified results are announced we will still be winning the elections," Omer said.
The election has been overshadowed by allegations of widespread fraud, with ballots from 2,500 polling stations across the country to be recounted by order of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).
The UN-backed ECC ordered the recount because of "convincing evidence of fraud" while European observers said almost a quarter of the votes could be tarnished.
The EU election observer mission said 1.5 million votes -- close to the margin between Adbullah and Karzai -- were suspect. Of those, 1.1 million were cast for Karzai, it said, and 300,000 for Abdullah.
"We have calculated 1.5 million suspicious votes," said Dimitra Ioannou, the deputy head of the European Union Election Observation Mission to Afghanistan.
Most of the questionable ballots are in Karzai's strongholds and if the recount pushes the incumbent's lead below 50 percent, the IEC would have to hold a run-off between the two leading candidates.
Karzai's office reacted with fury, issuing a statement damning the announcement as "partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution."
Abdullah's spokesman, Sayed Aqa Fazel Sancharaki, told AFP: "We do not accept these results at all."
He said Abdullah's camp would await the results of the investigations.
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