The chances of a second round run-off being needed to end Afghanistan's political crisis increased Monday when a UN-backed fraud watchdog submitted a long-delayed ruling into voting irregularities in August's poll. Fraud investigators threw out hundreds of thousands of votes for President Hamid Karzai, according to a report released Monday. The findings set the stage for a run-off between him and his top challenger. If the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) probe determines there are enough fraudulent votes to tip Karzai's vote below 50 percent he will face a second round against his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. But it did mean provisional results which gave Karzai 54.6 percent of the vote to Abdullah's 28 percent would almost certainly have to be changed. Among other findings, the ECC report listed numerous polling stations as having 100 percent of ballots collected being suspicious, with uniform markings or with no ballot papers folded at all and marked with a felt marker. In the first public criticism of the investigation coming from Karzai's side, a senior member of his election team said the ECC procedure was wrong.
