Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah says partial election
results show blatant evidence of "state-engineered" vote fraud, such as
polling districts in which every vote was cast for President Hamid
Karzai.
Mr. Abdullah Saturday urged the international community
to intervene, saying that if Afghanistan's next leader is chosen
through a fraudulent vote, it could fuel instability in the country.
Afghanistan's election commission says it stands by the partial results it has released on its Web site.
Officials
postponed the release of the next round of election results, which were
due Saturday. It is not clear if they made that decision based on a
request from Mr. Abdullah.
The most recent figures, based on
returns from 60 percent of the country's polling stations show Mr.
Karzai leading Mr. Abdullah with about 47 percent of the vote.
Candidates need at least 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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