Karzai leads Afghan vote

KABUL, Afghanistan – With one-third of the votes counted in Afghanistan’s landmark presidential election, Hamid Karzai was leading with 64 percent, and his campaign team said Tuesday it was still certain the interim leader will win the simple majority required to avoid a run-off.

The camp of ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, currently third, also said Tuesday that the race is over, but Karzai’s main challenger accused the U.S.-backed incumbent of cheating and refused to concede defeat.

Karzai’s rivals have lodged dozens of complaints with a panel of foreign experts, though it is unclear if the panel will report before the expected release of the official election result at the end of the month. Election officials have said the tallies were unlikely to change much once 20 percent of the votes had been counted.

Karzai, who has served as president since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001, had mixed results in the returns from northern and central provinces where his ethnic Tajik and Uzbek rivals are strongest. However, he appears set to sweep southern and eastern regions dominated by his fellow Pashtun tribesmen.

NATO helicopters on Tuesday rescued a team of Afghan election workers from snowbound mountains in the country’s remotest corner, and retrieved the last four ballot boxes containing ballots from the Oct. 9 election.