First unofficial results announced in Afghan election

U.N.-Afghan Election authorities announced Thursday the first few unofficial results in parliamentary election and said it was excluding nearly 300 polling stations from the vote count because of fraud.

The joint U.N.-Afghan election body declared provisional winners from national and provincial assembly seats in two of the country's 34 provinces and said most of the other results from the Sept. 18 poll would be released in the coming week.

Final, certified results are expected by late October.

Peter Erben, the chief electoral officer, said that fraud, including ballot-stuffing after polling day, had been detected so far at 299 polling stations _ about one percent of the total nationwide _ but no clear evidence had been found to implicate any candidates.

He said that there was "no sign of systemic or countrywide fraud" and was confident that the country's first parliamentary election in more than 30 years would "reflect the will of the voters of Afghanistan," reports the AP.

P.T.