KABUL, Oct 16: Afghanistan’s election authority announced final results for two of the country’s 34 provinces on Sunday as hundreds of protestors blocked roads in two key cities alleging fraud in the count.

Results from the September 18 legislative elections had been finalized for Nimroz and Farah provinces, an official said, with others expected to be completed by the month’s end.

The results confirmed a seat in the new parliament for firebrand activist Malalai Joya, from Farah, who rose to prominence in conservative Afghanistan when she dared to criticize feared warlords in a public meeting two years ago.

The elections for the parliament and provincial councils were the first in the battered country in more than three decades and a key step in a transition to democracy mapped out after the Taliban regime was removed in late 2001.

Joint Election Management Body (JEMB) chief of operations Richard Atwood told reporters the count had taken longer than anticipated mainly because of the time it took to investigate allegations of fraud.

Most allegations could not be substantiated and the fraud that had been uncovered was not systematic or widespread, he said.

Nonetheless votes from about 680 polling stations, under three per cent of the total, had been excluded from the count because of irregularities such as ballot stuffing, he said.

About 50 of the hundreds of thousands of elections staff had also been sacked after allegations were made against them.

Many of the complaints were from some of the more than 5,700 candidates who were clearly not going to win any of the nearly 670 seats up for grabs.

“The fraud that has occurred does not affect the integrity of the elections — the elections have been a reflection of the will of the Afghan electorate,” Atwood said.

President Hamid Karzai will convene parliament once all the results are finalized. The new body is expected to be dominated by prominent warlords, many accused of atrocities during 25 years of civil war, and members of the brutal Taliban government.

There have been regular protests against the count, many from candidates demanding the inclusion of quarantined ballot boxes excluded because of fraud allegations.

In the southern city of Kandahar scores of candidates and their supporters blocked a main road for several hours on Sunday, alleging fraud and causing the JEMB to suspend its work.

JEMB spokesman Terence White dismissed the accusations.

Around 400 candidates and their supporters meanwhile drove through the streets of the eastern city of Jalalabad in a convoy of about 70 vehicles to demand that quarantined ballots boxes be included in the count.—AFP