KABUL: Afghan electoral authorities announced Sunday the first cancellation of votes from last month’s fraud-tainted elections as partial results showed President Hamid Karzai creeping closer to the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff.
Election officials canceled the votes from 447 polling sites across the country, accounting for up to 200,000 votes, due to fraud, a spokesman for the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said.
Karzai held onto his lead, with 48.6 percent of the vote, according to partial results, well ahead of his nearest rival Abdullah Abdullah with 31.7 percent.
The IEC announced results from 74.2 percent of the polling stations used in Afghanistan’s second direct presidential election. Out of 4.3 million valid votes, Karzai won 2.9 million and former Foreign Minister Abdullah 1.36 million, IEC official Daud Ali Najafi told a news conference.
“Votes from 447 polling stations across the country have been nullified because of fraud,” Noor Mohammed Noor, IEC spokesman, told AFP. He said each polling site had around 600-700 ballots, so the canceled ballots “could be around 200,000 votes.”
The total number of polling sites was 25,450, he said, adding that votes had been counted from 18,877 sites, leaving those from 6,573 sites to be counted.
The Aug. 20 election has been overshadowed by allegations of widespread fraud and vote-rigging, with the Election Complaints Commission (ECC) dealing with more than 2,000 complaints. The ECC has said about one third of those complaints could impact the final result, which is not due to be announced before Sept. 17.
