KABUL (AFP) - Counting of votes in Afghanistan's disputed presidential election could start Wednesday after a deadline passed for complaints about irregularities, the UN-Afghan electoral commission said.
The count was put on hold after charges of fraud by opposition candidates, which are to be investigated by the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) and a three-person international panel.
The formation of the international panel averted a crisis hanging over the shattered central Asian state's first exercise in democracy.
"We are waiting for the green light which could come tomorrow (Wednesday) or the day after. There are papers piling up and they are ready to be counted," David Avery, JEMB chief logistics officer, said Tuesday.
The JEMB had called on candidates to submit their complaints by Tuesday evening, and three candidates had presented their objections well before the deadline, said Sultan Baheen, a spokesman for the JEMB.
The three were Yunus Qanooni, the chief challenger to US-backed interim President Hamid Karzai, ethnic Hazara warlord Mohammed Mohaqeq and Ghulam Farooq Nijrabi, he said.
They were among a group of 14 candidates who Saturday called for the election to be scrapped and held again, alleging a number of irregularities, including the embarrassing discovery that indelible ink used to mark the fingers of those who had voted could be washed off.
Despite the problems, the election has been hailed around the world, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday it showed that democracy was possible in Iraq.
"The people of Afghanistan showed us over the weekend that democracy applies anywhere in the world where people are given the opportunity to practice it," he said.
"And I think this is illustrative of what is possible in other parts of the world, certainly illustrative of what can happen in Iraq."
The huge election turnout was seen as a defeat of the hardline Taliban, ousted by the US-led invasion after the September 11 attacks, whose militants had pledged to sabotage the election with violent attacks.
Powell said he thought "the same thing can happen in Iraq," whose dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled by a US-led invasion last year.
"We have a difficult insurgency there, we are fighting that insurgency, we are fighting the terrorists, but I believe the people of Iraq want the same thing the people of Afghanistan and people in so many nations want: the opportunities to step forward and decide who will be their future leaders and to decide that by a vote," he said.
Elections are scheduled in Iraq in January 2005 even as US-led troops continue to fight militant groups to assert control over the country.
The New York Times warned in an editorial Tuesday that the longer-term success of Afghanistan's elections would depend on security, especially with parliamentary elections scheduled in spring next year.
Support from over 18,000 US-led troops was crucial in helping the Afghan army and police curb Taliban violence during the weekend election, which President Hamid Karzai is widely seen as the favourite to win.
"The longer-term success of these elections will depend on whether they confer the democratic legitimacy that Afghanistan's next president needs to prevail over the Taliban and assorted warlords without the indefinite presence of American troops," the Times said.