Kabul, Sep 12 (DPA) Even as questions of election fixing continued to swirl, Afghan election officials Saturday failed to release preliminary final results, as had been expected.
The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC), which has become the subject of pointed criticism since the Aug 20 election, reported Saturday that results from 92.8 percent of polling places had been counted.

Those results would give incumbent President Hamid Karzai a simple majority of the election with 54.3 percent of the vote. His closest competitor, Abdullah Abdullah, had 28.1 percent.

Such a result would relieve Karzai of having to compete in a run-off election. But final election results cannot be posted until a series of accusations about vote fixing are cleared up. That could take months, say officials.

Daoud Ali Najafi, IEC’s electoral chief, said in a press conference Saturday that the election body has set aside 2.15 percent of the returns, accounting for more than 600 polling sites. He added that the result for the remaining 5 percent would be announced Monday.

The UN-backed independent Election Complaints Commission (ECC) has already thrown out thousands of fraudulent ballots from polling stations in three provinces. It is likely to throw out still more.

The ECC has also demanded that votes from multiple polling sites be reviewed. If, after that review, Karzai still maintained an absolute majority of the vote, a run-off would not be required.

The ECC is investigating thousands of allegations of fraud, with hundreds of them serious enough to affect the outcome of the elections even after the IEC announces its final uncertified results.

Shortly before the expected release of the final results, Abdullah again accused Karzai of massive election fraud, but also called on his supporters to remain calm whatever results were released.

“Over a million votes are fraudulent,” Abdullah claimed in an interview to German media in his residence in Kabul Saturday, adding that if those votes are thrown out of the initial counts, the election would go to a run-off.

Initially the final and certified results were slated for Sep 17, but given the volume of the complaints, the date seems unlikely.