Afghanistan President Mr. Hamid Karzai has ruled out second round of elections over fraud allegations but said any runoff must follow the legal re-counting process. <br/>In an interview to CNN, Mr. Karzai said taking the elections to a second round or a runoff by engineering it in that direction is fraud in itself and against Afghan constitution. <br/>His comments came as there are suggestions of second round of elections from different quarters including his main rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah to ward off alleged irregularities during August 20 elections. <br/>Mr. Karzai termed the election true and fair and said he would not accept a second round of voting simply to satisfy critics claiming massive fraud. He did not rule out inviting<br/>Abdullah into a coalition government but said he would only do so to unite the country and not to respond to fraud allegations. <br/>The incumbent President has got 54.6 percent of the vote in preliminary results much ahead of Dr. Abdullah's 27.7 percent. <br/>However, a U.N.-backed complaints commission has ordered a re-count of about 10 percent of polling stations. If enough of those votes are invalidated and Mr. Karzai’s votes drop below 50 percent, it would force him into a runoff with Dr. Abdullah.
News On AIR | September 18, 2009 2:43 PM
Karzai rules out 2nd round of polls over fraud allegations