KABUL — An Afghan Cabinet minister said Monday that President Hamid Karzai won Thursday’s presidential election with an overwhelming majority of 68 percent.
If confirmed, such a result would eliminate the need for a runoff election in October between Karzai and his top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, but could raise questions about the vote’s credibility.
Finance Minister Omar Zak hilwol, citing partial and unpublished vote tallies, told journalists at a dinner that support for Karzai was high enough across the nation to cancel out the problem of low voter turnout in the south. Insurgent violence there prevented many people from voting, and there have been widespread accusations of fraud.
Pre-election polls suggested that Karzai, whose base is in the south, would win a high plurality of the vote but not reach the 50.1 percent required to win in the first round. They showed that Abdullah, a former foreign minister, would probably win at least 25 percent.
Abdullah charged Sunday that Karzai’s supporters and government officials had conducted “heavy rigging” of the elections.
No official results have been announced, but the Independent Elections Commission is due to release preliminary numbers today.
In the past week, election-monitoring groups said they have received hundreds of complaints of fraud, including some serious enough to potentially affect the outcome.
Zakhilwol said his assertion came from figures made available to him as a government official, and that they were based on a tally of about 4.5 million votes out of about 5 million cast. He said Karzai had received about 3 million and that Abdullah had about 1 million.
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