Two leading candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election each claimed Wednesday to be winning the vote count easily, but said they would be ready to contest a second-round run-off if necessary. More than seven million people defied Taliban threats of violence in Saturday's election to select a successor to President Hamid Karzai as US-led troops prepare to exit the country.
Unless one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two names will go head-to-head in another election scheduled for late May. Campaign officials for former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani and for Abdullah Abdullah, who came second in the 2009 election, both said that they were well ahead in unofficial counting.
"Initial assessment of the tally by our observers show that we are far in the lead," Azita Rafat, Ghani's spokeswoman, told AFP. "We have to wait for the announcement made by the IEC (Independent Election Commission), but if its decision is to go to the second round, we are fully prepared for that with confidence in our ultimate success."
Abdullah had vowed on the campaign trail to secure a first-round victory, and his team has been upbeat since the vote. "Analysis by our database centre shows that our election ticket is in the lead, scoring 62 percent of the votes that we have counted," said Abdullah's spokesman Mujib Rahman Rahimi.
"The official account has to come from the IEC, and these are partial results that could change, but we are ready for a second round if needed." Campaign officials have been collating results pinned up in the 6,400 individual polling centres. Abdullah's campaign said it had counted two million of the estimated seven million votes, while a running tally published on Ghani's website was taken down on the request of the IEC.
Turnout was about 58 percent, but the figure is uncertain as there is no proper electoral roll. The Election Complaints Commission (ECC) chief said Wednesday that votes would be combed through to uncover cheating after fears of a repeat of the massive fraud that blighted Karzai's re-election in 2009.
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