Karzai maintains lead in Afghan election count

President Hamid Karzai yesterday held his 54 per cent lead in Afghanistan's elections with nearly all the votes counted, but vote-rigging complaints mean it could be weeks before final results are known.

With ballots from 95 per cent of polling stations from the August 20 polls counted, preliminary results released by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) showed Karzai had a firm hold on his lead with 54.3 per cent.

His nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, is lagging behind in the count so far with 28.1 per cent, and has alleged massive state-engineered fraud in favour of a second five-year term for Western-backed Karzai.

But the winner will not be officially declared until all electoral fraud allegations are resolved, a process that could drag on, creating a dangerous political vacuum in a nation battling a resurgent Taliban.

The final result was scheduled for September 17, but with the IEC saying that hundreds of thousands of ballots are now quarantined for audit, naming Afghanistan's new president still looks weeks away.

IEC spokesman Daud Ali Najafi said that 2.15 per cent of the vote counted so far had been excluded from the latest results on the orders of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), with votes from a total of 600 polling stations affected.

"A list has been sent to the ECC for further investigations," he told a press conference in Kabul.

The announcement of full preliminary results is also unknown, with Najafi saying the timing would be discussed tomorrow between the IEC and the ECC.

The UN-backed ECC has already ordered thousands of votes thrown out from 83 polling stations and recounts in three provinces because of "clear and convincing evidence of fraud".

Concerns raised by the ECC include suspiciously high turnout in provinces where Taliban intimidation kept people away from the polls, and high numbers of votes for one candidate at certain stations - indications of ballot stuffing.

Election officials and UN observers have refused to put a timescale on the final result, as the investigations proceed and more recounts are likely.

The US State Department and analysts have said it could take months to determine the results and probe the alleged irregularities.

"This election is far from over," said UN spokesman Adrian Edwards.

Delays were frustrating, he said, but added: "This has to be an outcome that faithfully reflects the will of the Afghan voters in this election and there is a lot of work still to go on and we can't prejudge how long that will take."

The presidential and provincial council elections were seen as a key test of Western-backed efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan eight years after a US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime.

But instead of the country emerging from decades of war, increasing attacks by the regrouped Taliban have hobbled development, while about 100,000 US and Nato troops are in the country backing up government forces.