KABUL: Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah on Sunday withdrew his support from an anti-fraud audit of votes, as US-led efforts to keep the election on track descended into further uncertainty.

The country’s first democratic transfer of power has been engulfed in a dispute over alleged fraud, wrecking hopes that the election would be seen as a key achievement of the international military and civilian aid effort since 2001.

Instead, the contest between Abdullah, a former anti-Taleban resistance fighter, and Ashraf Ghani, an ex-World Bank economist, threatens to spark a spiral of instability as NATO troops pull out and violence increases nationwide.

After Abdullah rejected preliminary results that named Ghani as the winner of the June 14 election, US Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Kabul and persuaded the two candidates to agree to the audit to sift out fraudulent votes.

But the UN-supervised process triggered another outbreak of disagreements, and Abdullah’s campaign on Sunday refused to rejoin the process after repeated stoppages.

“The UN had promised us that they would only begin again after our concerns are met, but, despite that, the process has resumed,” Baryalai Arsalai, Abdullah’s campaign manager, told reporters. “This is a continuation of illegal action by the IEC (Independent Election Commission) and we condemn it.”

Abdullah’s team also alleged on Sunday that second Vice President Karim Khalili had been caught on tape saying that President Hamid Karzai was working illegally in favor of Ghani.