Kabul, 16/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - According to the European Union electoral observation team, around 1.5 million votes cast in the Afghan presidential elections are “suspect”. Of these, 1.1 million were for the out-going president Hamed Karzai, 300,000 for his main rival Abdullah Abdullah and 92,000 for another candidate, Ramazan Basharadost.
The European team's estimate was revealed on Wednesday 16 September at the very moment that the independent electoral commission was announcing the initial results from all the polling stations, thereby ending the vote counting in the 20 August election. The independent electoral commission says Karzai won the elections, with 54.6% of votes, ahead of Abdullah who took 27.8%. The turnout was 38.1%.
The result has still to be confirmed and an agreement reached with the electoral complaints commission. On Tuesday, this commission, which is under the aegis of the UN, and is responsible for examining complaints of electoral fraud, ordered the independent electoral commission to recount the votes from some 2,500 of the 26,300, or almost 10%, polling stations. (A.By./transl.rt)