KABUL (AFP) - Hamid Karzai has won outright victory in Afghanistan's first presidential election according to preliminary results, the interim leader's supporters and chief rival said.
Karzai, the urbane 46-year-old Pashtun tribal chief who has led Afghanistan with strong US backing for nearly three years, had the "secure majority of 50 percent plus one", presidential aide Khaleeq Ahmad told AFP.
"We are very delighted that we have a secure majority now. And we will wait to celebrate until 100 percent of the vote has been counted," Ahmad said. "We will celebrate when the results are officially announced and not before that."
As soon as Karzai's tally passed four million ballots, of an estimated eight million cast, at around 4:00pm (1130 GMT), Karzai's campaign spokesman Hamid Elmi told AFP: "We have a simple majority. This is exactly what we want."
Karzai's chief rival, Yunus Qanooni, was swift to acknowledge Karzai's majority, 15 days after the landmark ballot drew millions across the rugged land to vote for the first time in their lives.
"In order to respect the nation's will, based on the numbers announced up to now, we consider Karzai the winner," Qanooni's spokesman, Sayed Hamid Noori, told AFP.
"There were lots of cases of fraud and irregularities, which we reported. But as our candidate Mr. Qanooni has said, we shall respect the will of people even though there was fraud."
Noori said Qanooni's acceptance of the result was also an effort to "avoid violence and to respect the national interests of the country".
Qanooni, formerly education minister in Karzai's interim cabinet, was the favourite of the anti-Taliban alliance of military commanders and a hero of the ethnic Tajik minority.
Karzai, from Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, had 4,219,569 votes at the latest tally, based on 94.4 percent of ballots counted, giving him 55.3 percent of the estimated total vote compared with Qanooni's 16.2 percent.
United Nations spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told reporters earlier Sunday that an official declaration of results was still "a matter of days" away.
The last vote must be counted and a panel probing alleged fraud must submit its findings before the result and victor can be declared, he said.
The panel will meet opposition candidates again Monday to discuss around 100 formal complaints.
Elmi, however, said he "jumped for joy" when he was informed that Karzai's tally had surpassed four million, the threshold set by the campaign team for securing the simple majority needed to avoid a second-round runoff.
"When I received the call, I jumped, actually, to call my relatives, all the campaign managers, our campaign offices all around the country to say 'Thank you'," he said.
Elmi said he expected an official announcement from the election commission on Monday.
"Then we will hold a small dinner party, for the campaign team and supporters, at iftar," he said, referring to the Ramadan breaking of fast.
Election officials have refused to acknowledge the mathematical threshold for attaining the 50-percent-plus one majority, saying that the final number of votes cast was still an estimate and that 360,000 ballot papers are still in quarantine.
Karzai's unofficial victory was marred by a weekend suicide blast in front of a Kabul carpet shop, illustrating the dangers still facing the war-weary land.
An American woman shopping for carpets and an Afghan girl who was selling books were killed in Saturday afternoon's attack on the city's famous "Chicken Street". Three Icelandic peacekeepers and five Afghans were wounded.
The hardline Islamic Taliban, who ruled the country until a US-led attack toppled them in late 2001, claimed responsibility.
The two deaths brought to 21 the number of people who have been killed in Taliban-related violence since the historic election.
The election was a crucial step towards democracy after decades of violent rule that has successively seen communists, Soviets, warlords and the Taliban rise to power.
10/24/2004 - 18:23 GMT - AFP