Probe puts Afghan election results in limbo

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's election results are headed into weeks of limbo as a government commission investigates more than 600 complaints of ballot-stuffing, intimidation, and other allegations.

Although President Hamid Karzai is reported to be ahead, election officials said that no winner can be certified in the Aug. 20 election until the review is completed, and no one knows how long that might take.

The election uncertainty comes at a perilous time for Karzai's government as insurgents widen their influence across the country.

A suicide bomber killed the deputy director of Afghanistan's main intelligence agency and 22 others yesterday in Laghman province in the east, and the Taliban took responsibility for the attack.

It also comes at an important juncture for the nearly eight-year-long U.S. war here. President Obama is expected to receive a Pentagon request later this month to increase the number of U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan, amid polls that show declining public support for the war and concern that Afghans would consider a larger force an occupying army.

Two weeks after the vote, ballots have been tallied from 60 percent of the polling places, with Karzai reported to be leading with 47 percent, and his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, trailing with 32.6 percent. That tally leaves Karzai shy of the majority vote needed to avoid a runoff election.

An initial tally of all the votes is expected by Monday. However, Grant Kippen, chairman of the U.N.-backed Election Complaints Commission, said the winner cannot be certified - or a date set should there be a need for a runoff - until the investigations are completed.

"We have no idea how that may impact overall results," Kippen said.

The five-member commission includes three international members appointed by the United Nations.

If Karzai ends up with more than 50 percent of the vote in the initial tally, he could declare himself the winner regardless of ongoing inquiries.

Abdullah has said, however, that he will not bow out of the race while the investigations continue, promising supporters at a rally this week that he will "stand with my people to the end."

It is unclear how many votes could be affected by the commission's inquiry into the 652 priority complaints culled from a broader group of more than 2,000.

A staff of 200 investigators is fanning across the country to check out the fraud claims. Officials declined to predict when the work might be done.

Kippen did not release any details, but he said that the largest number of complaints came from Baghlan in northeastern Afghanistan; the capital, Kabul; and the southern province of Kandahar.

"These complaints must be adjudicated before the [Afghan Independent Election Commission] can certify the final results," he said.

One problem with rerunning the elections is that it would give insurgents another opportunity to show their strength around the country.

In the latest attack, a bomber wearing an explosive vest packed with ball bearings detonated himself outside a mosque in Mehterlam, in Laghman province, 60 miles east of Kabul.

Abdullah Laghmani, deputy director of the National Directorate for Security, the country's CIA-mentored intelligence service, and other top officials were among the 23 killed, and at least 35 people were injured, Sayed Ahmad Safi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said.

A Taliban spokesman, in telephone calls to Afghan and international media, took responsibility for the strike, which took place in the middle of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, but there was no way to confirm the claim.

Whoever is responsible, the attack suggests a major breach of security and the possibility that the insurgents penetrated the agency or the provincial security force.

Laghmani, a former intelligence chief of war-torn Kandahar province, fought the Taliban as a member of the ethnic Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, though he was a Pashtun, the ethnic group from which the Taliban draws most of its fighters.

"The Taliban certainly seem to take note of the opportunity that this uncertainty creates, and they won't make the mistake of not exploiting it," said Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst based in Kabul for the International Crisis Group.

Some of the most sweeping fraud accusations have been made in the Pashtun south, a Taliban stronghold that has also been a traditional base of Karzai, who is a Pashtun.

Those allegations got a public airing this week as hundreds of Abdullah supporters gathered in a wedding hall in downtown Kabul to hear politicians and tribal leaders from the south.

Hamidullah Tokhi, a parliamentarian from Zabul province, alleged that a district leader arranged for 20,000 ballots to be cast for Karzai. "This government is very weak," Tokhi said. "They don't have the support of 10 percent of the people."

Karzai campaign aides have repeatedly denied mounting an effort to alter votes and accused Abdullah supporters of skewing votes.

Abdullah, who early on served in the Karzai government, said he was not about to join a new Karzai administration or to help forge a coalition government.

Faced with a political crisis in the middle of a war, envoys from the United States and other major countries conferred yesterday in Paris on how to rescue their costly effort to rebuild Afghanistan.

The fear is that an election not seen by Afghans as credible could strip the new government of its legitimacy and undermine efforts to shore up the Afghan state.

U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, however, played down worries about Karzai's legitimacy, should he be reelected, saying he would have "no problem" dealing with him, the Associated Press reported.

Irregularities are normal in any democratic system, he added, noting the Minnesota senatorial election, which took months to settle.

Suspected militants opened fire on a vehicle carrying Pakistan's religious affairs minister yesterday, wounding

him and killing his driver in a brazen attack in

the heart of the capital.

Hamid Saeed Kazmi has been critical of Muslim extremists, who are blamed for scores of attacks in Pakistan over the last 21/2 years.

Fellow ministers said the Taliban was suspected in the shooting, which took place even as police in Islamabad were on high alert amid fears of revenge attacks after the Aug. 5 killing

of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a suspected U.S. missile strike.

"We are not scared;

we are not afraid of

these cowardly acts," Health Minister Ejaz Jhakrani said.

Kazmi was shot in the

leg and was in stable condition. Authorities said two gunmen on a motorbike were involved in the shooting. They struck seconds after Kazmi's vehicle left his office, witnesses said.

Kazmi comes from Pakistan's moderate Barelvi sect. His duties include regulating the country's thousands of Islamic schools, some

of which are linked to extremist groups.

- Associated PressEndText