KABUL, Oct 22: Hamid Karzai's victory in Afghanistan's first presidential election cannot be declared until complaints from all candidates are investigated and the last vote is counted, the United Nations said.
The US-backed incumbent was comfortably ahead of his nearest rival Yunus Qanooni with almost two-thirds of votes counted early Friday. But while Karzai's tally may surpass the simple majority over the weekend, any declaration of victory is several days off.
"The only institution that can issue a final statement is the JEMB," the UN-Afghan electoral commission known as the Joint Electoral Management Body, UN spokesman Manoel Almeida E Silva said late Thursday.
"They will do that by taking into account (not just) the counting, but also the results of the investigation." A panel of three international experts is probing around 285 complaints lodged by all 18 candidates including Karzai.
"Let's hope that they will be able to send their final report to the electoral commission in the days to come," the UN spokesman said. Some 45 per cent of the complaints concern the apparent failure of indelible ink, which was meant to prevent repeat voting by staining voters' fingers.
Around seven per cent alleged a shortage of polling material, five per cent concerned multiple voting or under-aged voters, and four per cent complained there was inadequate voter education, Mr Silva said.
Just over eight per cent concerned polling personnel, while another eight Per cent of complaints were "not really complaints but compliments to the JEMB and to the electoral process itself."
Counting continued on Friday despite it being the weekly day off in Afghanistan. The latest tally gave Karzai 56.1 per cent of the vote with 2,903,303 ballots.
He needs another 1.1 million to 1.2 million votes to attain the simple majority of 50 per cent-plus-one vote, which would eliminate the need for a second-round runoff.
Qanooni, the ethnic Tajik favourite of the powerful anti-Taliban Northern Alliance of commanders was on 17.2 per cent. Two warlords are in third and fourth place: Uzbek general Abdul Rashid Dostam has 10.1 per cent of the vote, closely followed by military strongman Mohammad Mohaqeq of the Shia Hazara ethnic minority on 10 per cent.
French-speaking poet Abdul Latif Pedram and the sole woman candidate Masooda Jalal are on 1.2 and 1.1 per cent respectively. The vote results are following clear ethnic lines, with Karzai sweeping the Pashtun belt in Afghanistan's south and southeast, Dostam and Qanooni leading in the Uzbek and Tajik-dominated north, and Mohaqeq leading in the central Hazara-dominated provinces. Around eight million of 10.5 million registered voters turned out to cast ballots on Oct 9, according to election commission estimates. -AFP
