A UN-backed complaint commission failed Saturday to finalize results for suspicious ballots cast in August 20 presidential elections, a spokeswoman said, according to dpa. Diplomatic sources said that Western officials have mounted their pressures on key candidates to form a coalition government in a bid to avoid post-result crisis. The Election Complaints Commission (ECC), which is probing thousands of allegations of vote fraud, was expected to submit its rulings to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) by Saturday, in order to enable authorities to announce whether a runoff vote would be necessary. But Nellika Little, a spokeswomen for the ECC said that the body was still checking the suspicious ballots boxes, but she hoped that the rulings could be finalized and submitted to IEC by Sunday. Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for the IEC said that said it would take up to two more days for the body to announce the final certified results, once the rulings are received. The IEC conducted the August elections and is widely accused of being biased in favor of President Hamid Karzai, who won the re-election in the preliminary results. The final results were slated for mid-September, but have been repeatedly delayed by the ECC. The Washington Post and New York Times cited election officials Friday saying that Karzai's share of vote was below 50 per cent, which would force a runoff with his main rival Abdullah Abdullah. The Afghan ambassador to the United States Said Tayeb Jawad also said a second round was "likely," while US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told CNN on Friday that the incumbent would likely win if a second round of voting were held. Abdullah, who has repeatedly accused Karzai of engineering the fraud, said this week that his team was ready for the second round of the elections. Karzai received 54 per cent of the vote, but if enough of his ballots are found fraudulent and discounted by ECC, he would be forced into a runoff. According to diplomatic sources Karzai was resisting the publication of final results that would push his share of vote below 50 per cent. Officials from Western countries who funded the August election are said to be nudging Karzai and Abdullah to form a coalition government, but both rivals in the past said that sharing power was not an option for them. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, and US Democratic Senator John Kerry were in Kabul on Saturday, while former US ambassador for Afghanistan, Iraq and United Nations, Zalmai Khalilzad also arrived in the country last week. Wary of a post-results crisis, the trio, according to foreign diplomats, have met both Karzai and Abdullah and were trying to press both parties to reach a solution to whether accept Karzai as winner and share power, or to go to a runoff election. UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Clinton and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Karzai on Friday to discuss the results, according to presidential palace source. Abdullah also held several meetings with foreign ambassadors and had telephone conversations with Clinton, and Brown, according to his office. According to Afghanistan's election law, the second round of balloting has to be held within two weeks from the announcement of the final results, which would be a major logistical challenge for the IEC. A delay, however, could make polls impossible in central parts of the country due to the onset of winter. While observers fear an even lower turnout than the 38.7 per cent in the first round, due to Taliban threats and widespread frustration among Afghan voters, they believe a runoff would at least undo the election stigma caused by massive fraud.
