The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul

President Karzai could be forced to form a coalition government in Afghanistan or face a second round of voting after electoral fraud officials slashed his share of the vote to below 50 per cent.

After more than eight weeks investigating 2,584 allegations of election fraud, misconduct and vote-rigging, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is expected to cut Mr Karzai’s lead to about 47 per cent today. If the figure is upheld as final, it would mean that the President would have a run-off with his closest rival, Dr Abdullah Abdullah.

Mr Karzai insisted that reports of irregularities were fabricated and politically motivated. Diplomats fear that he will reject the commission’s rulings. A British official said: “There are strong indications that whatever the ECC decides, it won’t be accepted because of pressure being applied by the Karzai campaign team.”

Provisional results from Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission, which was implicated in the fraud, gave Mr Karzai 54.6 per cent, ahead of his former foreign minister on 27.8 per cent. European Union monitors said that up to 1.5 million votes were cast illegally. (Read more)