Kabul, August 22: It did not take long for the victory claims to come in Afghanistan. Yesterday, less than 24 hours after the polls had closed, both President Hamid Karzai and his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah were saying they had won outright and that a potentially destabilising run-off would not be necessary.
With accusations of electoral fraud swirling about the capital, United Nations and US officials warned the rival camps to keep a lid on simmering tensions and stressed that only Afghanistan’s electoral authorities could provide a definitive count.
“We’ve seen the reports, but only the Independent Election Commission is in a position to announce official results. We’ll be waiting to hear from them. Anything else is just speculation,” the US embassy spokeswoman Fleur Cowan said.
–Agencies