The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul and James Bone in New York

One in ten ballots from Afghanistan’s fraud-ridden presidential ballot are to be recounted after election officials spoke in damning terms yesterday of “state-sponsored” vote-rigging, police intimidation and phantom polling stations.

The recount increases the chances of the election going into a second round if President Karzai’s lead — 54.3 per cent with nearly all the votes counted — is cut to below the 50 per cent mark. Grant Kippen, the head of the UN-backed Election Complaints Commission, said that votes from more than 2,500 polling sites would have to be recounted.

The Commission made its announcement as Peter Galbraith, the top American diplomat in the United Nations mission in Afghanistan who left the country after a clash with his Norwegian boss, called for an “honest count”. “My belief is that Afghans voted at considerable personal risk and they are entitled to have an honest count of their votes and that this election should be decided by mathematics not politics,” Mr Galbraith told The Times. (Read more)