Bloodbath fear after Afghan poll rivals both claim victory

Published on Friday 21 August 2009 22:03

PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai and his leading opponent both claimed to have won Afghanistan's election outright yesterday, fuelling fears of post-election riots.

Most of the votes have been counted but official results are not due until 3 September.

Mr Karzai's campaign manager Haji Deen Mohammad said: "Initial results show that the president has got a majority. We will not go to a second round. We have got a majority."

Abdullah Abdullah – Mr Karzai's former foreign minister – whose supporters have threatened riots "with Kalashnikovs" if Mr Karzai wins in the first round, said: "I'm ahead. Initial results from the provinces show that I have more than 50 per cent of the vote. In some provinces it is well above 60 per cent."

Mr Abdullah's camp said it was investigating fraud claims across southern provinces where Mr Karzai would expect to do well.

"As far as my campaign is concerned, I am in the lead, and that's despite the rigging which has taken place in some parts of the country," Mr Abdullah said.

He claimed that government officials interfered with ballot boxes, and in some places blocked monitors from inspecting boxes or their contents. Mr Abdullah said there "is a likelihood" that neither he nor Mr Karzai got more than 50 per cent of the vote, a circumstance that would trigger a run-off.

But Mr Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omar said a second round would be "logistically, financially and also politically" problematic for the people of Afghanistan, though the election commission has said it is ready to hold a second round if needed.

"Our prediction is that the election will not go to the second round," Mr Omar said.

"Our initial information is that we will hopefully be able to win the elections in the first round."

US president Barack Obama said the Afghanistan election was major progress but warned that violence may continue.

"This was an important step forward in the Afghan people's effort to take control of their future even as violent extremists are trying to stand in their way," president Obama said.

"Over the last few days, particularly yesterday, we've seen acts of violence and intimidation by the Taleban, and there may be more in the days to come."

President Obama praised the millions of Afghans who came out to vote on Thursday despite the threat of violence.

"I was struck by their courage in the face of intimidation and their dignity in the face of disorder," he said.

"There is a clear contrast between those who seek to control their future at the ballot box and those who kill to prevent that from happening."

A senior election official, Zekria Barakzai, said he estimated that 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the country's 15 million registered voters cast ballots – far lower than the 70 per cent figure in the presidential election in 2004.

The International Republican Institute, a US non-profit organisation that had about 30 election observers in Afghanistan, said the vote was at a "lower standard than the 2004 and 2005 Afghan elections" but that "the process so far has been credible".

Election observers say a second round between Mr Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun, and Mr Abdullah, who draws support from Tajiks in the north, risked dividing the country along ethnic lines, and that disagreement over the outcome could lead to civil unrest.

Nightmare scenarios include the possibility of Mr Abdullah's supporters severing the main road through the mountains in the north, a Nato supply route.

Afghanistan is approximately 42 per cent Pashtun and Tajiks are the second largest ethnic group at 27 per cent. Mr Abdullah has a Pashtun father – but his power base is among the Tajiks.

Much is likely to depend on turn-out in southern areas, such as Mr Karzai's home province of Kandahar, where he draws his strongest support but where voters faced the brunt of Taleban attacks and intimidation.

Mr Abdullah's spokesman Fazl Sangcharaki said the north had voted solidly for Mr Abdullah, except in Jowzjan province, home of Uzbek militia chieftain Abdul Rashid Dostum, who campaigned for Mr Karzai.