KABUL (AFP) - Yunus Qanooni, Hamid Karzai's chief rival in Afghanistan's presidential election, said he will accept the outcome, as Karzai swept the country's south and southeast en route to outright victory.
"I have made sacrifices for the national interests of Afghanistan and I am ready to make another sacrifice," former education minister Qanooni told AFP on Wednesday.
"Observing the visible fraud in the election, and then respecting the national interest of Afghanistan, is a sacrifice."
Asked if that meant he would accept the result he replied: "Yes, you understood me well."
Fraud allegations by Qanooni, the favourite of the powerful anti-Taliban Northern Alliance clique which dominated the interim governments, sparked fears he would reject the final result and undermine the entire process.
Qanooni alleged fraud occurred before, during and after the landmark October 9 ballot, but he dropped earlier boycott calls after an international inquiry began into alleged irregularities including the failure of indelible ink.
He declared Monday that election organisers had "robbed" him of victory, claiming that pre-poll surveys indicated he should win 58 percent of votes, but with 50.7 percent of the vote counted Wednesday he had only garnered 17.2 percent of ballots compared to Karzai's 59.8 percent.
Karzai is heading for a landslide win in the Pashtun-dominated regions where he is on more than 90 percent in six provinces, according to latest data on the election commission website
The US-backed incumbent had always been widely tipped to win the historic October 9 vote, the only real question was whether he would clear the simple majority requirement of 50 percent plus one.
With half of the required votes already under his belt, outright victory is just days away making a second-round runoff unnecessary.
Based on election commission estimates, around 8,146,173 million of the 10.5 million registered voters cast ballots, meaning the winner needs 4,073,087 votes to win.
Karzai has tallied 2,438,761 votes so far, needing 1,634,326 more for victory.
In southeast provinces Khost and Logar Karzai was scoring 97 percent, in Paktia 96 percent, and 95 percent in Kunar and Nangarhar. In his home province Kandahar, the former spiritual base of ousted Taliban rulers, he is on 91 percent. Overall he is leading in 21 of landlocked Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
Organisers said they will not declare the winner before all votes are counted and the final results are determined, which is expected around October 28.
Tussling for third place behind Karzai and Qanooni are two powerful warlords, northern-based Uzbek general Abdul Rashid Dostam and ethnic Hazara strongman Mohammed Mohaqeqis, who each have 8.3 percent of the vote.
Dostam is leading in four northern provinces while Mohaqeqis leads in three central provinces where the Shiite Hazara minority dominate.
The only woman candidate Masooda Jalal was in sixth place with one percent just behind francophone poet Abdul Latif Pedram, with 1.1 percent.
Jalal's strong showing was unexpected in conservative Afghanistan, where women are still expected to keep a low profile. Under the harsh Taliban regime they were prohibited from working, studying, or being seen in public.
The ballot was the first chance ever for Afghans to choose their own leader, after enduring Taliban rule, civil war, Soviet occupation, a Communist regime, monarchies and British colonial rule.
It was hailed worldwide for the massive voter turnout in the face of threats of violence by bitter Taliban loyalists.
The US military, leading an 18,000 strong coalition hunting Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, said the Taliban suffered a "huge loss of face" in failing to sabotage the poll.
"The Taliban threatened, they cajoled, they intimidated, but when election day came they essentially were absent from the battlefield", coalition commander Lieutenant General David Barno told reporters.
US-led forces will meanwhile keep up an "aggressive" hunt to "drive that final deathnail into their coffin", US military spokesman Major Scott Nelson said.