Afghanistan starts counting votes
Kabul (AsiaNews/ AFP) "The counting has started in all the eight regional centres," Election Commission spokesman Sultan Baheen said. The count from Saturday's historic ballot had been put on hold while diplomats lobbied key opposition candidates to drop calls for a boycott over charges of multiple voting and other irregularities, and an international panel was set up to probe their complaints.
It was given the go-ahead earlier Thursday as a UN-appointed panel of three international experts set up to investigate the complaints announced it would isolate ballot boxes it wanted to investigate. "The rest of the boxes were released for counting" Baheen said.
Afghans and international staff will count the votes by hand and will be supervised by an international counting centre manager, agents of the candidates and observers.
Final results could take several weeks. According to pre-election surveys, Mr Karzai was poised to win well in excess of the 50 per cent needed to avoid a run-off against the second-placed candidate.
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