Karzai leads in Afghan poll, run-off indicated

KABUL (Reuters) – Partial results from last week’s  election put Afghan President Hamid Karzai ahead of main rival  Abdullah Abdullah, but not by enough to avoid a second round  run-off in October, figures released yesterday showed.

With 17 per cent of votes tallied, Karzai held a lead of 43  percent to 34 per cent over former foreign minister Abdullah.
The results have been trickling in over the past week,  leaving the country in political limbo. To avoid a run-off, a  candidate must secure more than 50 per cent of the vote.
The election is a major test for Karzai after eight years  in power and for US President Barack Obama, who has poured in  thousands of extra troops as part of his new regional strategy  to defeat the Taliban and stabilise Afghanistan.

In Kandahar, the country’s second biggest city and the  spiritual home of the Taliban, authorities raised the toll from  a massive truck bomb late on Tuesday to 43 dead and 65 wounded,  all civilians.

The bomb devastated a section of the town and was the worst  in more than a year. It came the same day four American  servicemen were killed, making 2009 the deadliest year for  foreign forces since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

Violence has worsened sharply this year, testing Obama’s  new strategy and leading to a softening of support for the war  in the United States as military casualties mounted in the face  a growing Taliban-led insurgency.

A Taliban spokesman denied responsibility for the Kandahar  blast, which Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said was carried  out with a remotely detonated bomb in a parked truck.
Election officials have warned against drawing conclusions  about the final count from the small initial samples. They have  promised to provide daily updates but the complete count is not  due until Sept. 3.

The results suggest a disappointing turnout of only about  5.5 million votes in a country of some 30 million people. The  total number of eligible voters is not known exactly, but  election authorities put it at around 15 million.

Taliban fighters had launched attacks and threatened  reprisals against voters during the election, scaring many  Afghans away from the polls, especially in the violent south.
More than 30,000 extra US troops have landed in  Afghanistan this year, most part of a package of reinforcements  ordered by Obama in May in response to a growing Taliban  insurgency.

More than 100,000 Western troops are now in the country,  63,000 of them Americans.
The number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this  year now stands at 295, according to icasualties.org, a website  which compiles official figures. Last year, 294 died.