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The two frontrunners in the Afghanistan election claimed victory today amid mounting evidence that the poll was marred by intimidation and fraud.
Campaign teams for the president, Hamid Karzai, and the former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, both said they had won an outright majority in yesterday's poll.
Deen Mohammad, campaign chief for Mr Karzai, said they predicted victory after reports from nearly 29,000 monitors they had at polling stations across the country. “Initial results show that the president has got a majority,” he claimed. “We will not go to a second round. We have got a majority.”
But a spokesman for Mr Abdullah dismissed the Karzai camp's claims. Fazl Sangcharaki said the results from his observers at polling booths around the country suggested Mr Abdullah had won 63 per cent of the vote to Mr Karzai's 31 per cent. “This is not a final result,” he said. “We are still receiving more results from our people on the ground. We might be done by tomorrow.”
US envoy Richard Holbrooke said he was sure the outcome would be disputed. He urged the main candidates to wait for official results before declaring victory.
“We always knew it would be a disputed election. I would not be surprised if you see candidates claiming victory and fraud in the next few days,” Mr Holbrooke said in Kabul.
Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) said today that 11 people had been killed by insurgent attacks while trying to organise the poll. Today Taliban insurgents attacked a vehicle carrying boxes of ballot papers, killing one election official and setting fire to the boxes in northern Afghanistan.
Already allegations of fraud and reports of low voter turnout threaten to undermine the legitimacy of the election. Stories of how ballot boxes were already stuffed as polls opened, and voters being told who to endorse, were widespread. Official preliminary results are not due for two weeks.
In Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province, the local head of the IEC said less than 10 per cent of people voted. Government officials had predicted 200,000 people might brave the polls, but there were reports that the real figure was no more than 50,000. Pro-Karzai bias was evident all over the city. One policeman ripped a rival candidate's posters off the side of a parked car, near a polling station. “Formal campaigning is banned now,” he said. His colleague was wearing a Karzai badge as he frisked people at the gates.
Local journalists said they saw women asking if they could vote for a king. “The election officials picked their favourite candidate and told the women to vote for them,” said one.
