Karzai has 54% of fraud-tainted Afghan vote

Afghanistan's election commission says President Hamid Karzai has 54 per cent of the vote with almost all the ballots in the August 20 presidential poll now counted.

The results show that Karzai has surpassed the important 50 per cent threshold for the first time. Karzai needs a majority of ballots cast to avoid a two-man run-off with his top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. The commission says nearly 92 per cent of votes have been counted.

Still, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission ordered a re-count Tuesday of ballots where it had found "convincing evidence" of fraud," meaning Karzai could still have votes taken away from him.

Results won't be officially certified until late September, after fraud allegations have been investigated.

Widespread allegations of ballot-box stuffing and suspicious tallies are threatening the legitimacy of Afghanistan's August 20 vote as the country awaits final results. More than 720 major fraud charges have been lodged with the Electoral Complaints Commission.

A separate Afghan-run body which organized the election has already thrown out votes from 447 stations - about 200,000 ballots - because of fraud.