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Incumbent Hamid Karzai appears to have won Afghanistan's presidential elections, with nearly all the votes counted, but a UN-backed commission says it has "clear and convincing evidence of fraud".
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said on Tuesday that with 91.6 per cent of polling stations tallied, Karzai had 54.1 per cent of the vote, more than the 50 per cent needed to avoid a second round run-off.
Karzai's nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, won 28.3 per cent of the vote, the IEC said.
But the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said earlier on Tuesday that it had found evidence of fraud in the election and ordered a partial recount of the vote.
Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from Kabul, said if the IEC results were to stand, there would be no run-off and Karzai would be returned as president.
"But things are not that simple," he said.
Fraud allegations
Bays said: "We've had the Election Complaints Commission come out, saying they have clear and convincing evidence of fraud in these elections.
"They point to three provinces where they have particular concerns and they have launched a wide ranging order - anywhere nationwide ... where there was a 100 per cent turnout, they want a recount and an audit of everything that was in the ballot box.
"And also where one candidate has got more than 95 per cent of the vote, they want a recount and an audit.
"They want to look at all these ballots again, look at the handwriting, make sure for example that they were not written by the same person."
The commission said it would set aside results from 600 polling stations where it suspected irregularities.
Owing to mounting allegations of fraud, the IEC has excluded around 200,000 votes from 447 polling stations from preliminary results to be announced later this week, Daoud Ali Najafi, IEC chief electoral officer, told German Press Agency dpa.
The votes were suspicious and were sent to the ECC for adjudication, Najafi said, adding: "The ECC will decide if they would throw it out of the final result."
The ECC also ordered the IEC to recount votes from polling stations where more than 600 votes were cast - the most that could be cast at a single station.
The August 20 election was Afghanistan's only second direct presidential election, and has been overshadowed by claims of massive fraud.
PHOTO CAPTION
Afghan president Hamid Karzai, seen in August, has extended his lead in the fraud-tainted elections, passing the key 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off.
Al-Jazeera
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