KABUL: Afghan presidential election candidate Abdullah Abdullah on Wednesday demanded a halt to vote-counting over fraud allegations, taking the country to the brink of a political crisis during its first democratic transition of power.

Abdullah ramped up his complaints over alleged fraud in Saturday’s run-off election by accusing his opponent Ashraf Ghani, outgoing President Hamid Karzai and the Independent Election Commission (IEC) of all being involved.

A smooth election was seen as a key test of the 13-year international military and aid effort to develop Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001.

But Abdullah’s statement on Wednesday fueled a growing dispute that could trigger instability as the bulk of US-led troops withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

“We suspend engagement with the Election Commission and we have asked our monitors to leave their offices,” Abdullah said.

“We are asking for the counting process to be stopped immediately.”

He added that “everybody knows... that unfortunately the president of Afghanistan was not impartial” and that some ballot boxes were stuffed with votes the day before the second-round election.