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2009 Afghan Presidential Election > Top News
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Afghan minister claims Karzai poll win, UN says wait(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-25 11:16
Both camps have claimed they are ahead in the race, but have promised to respect the result and avoid stirring up violence. UN envoy Kai Eide acknowledged there had been some problems with the election but urged patience while the partly UN-appointed Election Complaints Commission (ECC) checks complaints. "There is no doubt that there have been irregularities during the polling day, there have been irregularities before the polling day," he told reporters at the ECC headquarters in Kabul earlier on Monday. "I do appeal to the candidates and to the campaigns and also to the voters to demonstrate the patience and the calm that is required for the ECC to carry out its work," Eide said. Two opinion polls before the election predicted Karzai would win, but not by enough to prevent a potentially destabilizing second round run-off against Abdullah in October. Zakhilwal said Karzai had won the support of regional chiefs, which helped increase his vote tally, since those polls were conducted. The ECC has said it had received 225 complaints including allegations of voter intimidation, violence, ballot box tampering and interference by some election officials. It has classified 35 of those complaints as a priority. But the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which is counting the results and is separate from the complaints watchdog, said these will be unlikely to affect the outcome. "We have reached the conclusion that 35 cases of reported fraud and violations are not widespread, given the number of polling centres is 6,300. Whoever makes claims that there is widespread fraud should show evidence," IEC deputy head Zekria Barakzai told a news conference.
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