Afghan Vote Results Delayed (Until Tuesday)

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Source: Canwest News Service

KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan - The incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, both claimed Friday that they had been elected president of Afghanistan, with each man boasting that he had won more than half the votes in Thursday's election.

However, other than saying their claims were based on information their own workers had given them, neither candidate provided any proof that he had actually won.

In a country already reeling from a long insurgency by Islamic extremists, there was widespread surprise and relief that Thursday's election took place with little of the mayhem that the Taliban had threatened. Eight civilians and 18 Afghan soldiers and police officers died - a far smaller number than had been widely expected.

But the respite from conflict may be short-lived because of the claims and counter-claims about who won and concerns about low voter turnout in areas in the South where the insurgency is particularly strong.

Ethnic tensions between Karzai's mostly Pashtun supporters and Abdullah's mostly Tajik supporters, which have existed since before the outset of the campaign, will undoubtedly intensify after election officials decided on Friday to move back the date of the release of preliminary results to Tuesday from Saturday.

"The commission's determination that they want to wait until the 25th is a mistake," said Glenn Cowan of Maryland-based Democracy International. "I think that all this will do is to tend to heighten the uncertainly and lead to a lot of conjecture about the process."

more: http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=1916107