Officials in Afghanistan say they are looking into more than 560 major allegations of election fraud from the 20 August presidential vote, BBC online reports Sunday.
The tally doubles the figure (270) of serious allegations reported two days ago. Full preliminary results are due next week, but the final results will not be made official until major fraud allegations are investigated.
The latest partial results give President Hamid Karzai 46 per cent of the votes compared to Abdullah Abdullahs 31.4 per cent. A candidate needs half of votes cast to avoid a second round run-off which, if needed, would be held in October.
The independent Electoral Complaints Commission said on Sunday that of more than 2.000 allegations of fraud and intimidation during voting and vote-counting, 567 had been deemed serious enough to affect the elections outcome, if proven.
With two-thirds of polling stations still to announce their results, Mr Abdullah has already alleged “massive, state-crafted” fraud. He told the BBC on Saturday that ballot boxes had been “stuffed with hundreds of thousands of votes”.
Mr Karzai has rejected allegations of state-crafted fraud.
