KABUL — Less than 48 hours after a runoff election to choose the next president of Afghanistan, the first signs of a looming political crisis emerged Monday, with the campaign of Abdullah Abdullah claiming there had been widespread ballot stuffing and suggesting he was being set up for a defeat he would not accept.
A senior campaign official for Abdullah, who won the most votes in the election’s first round, said the candidate believes President Hamid Karzai and a coterie of advisers around him orchestrated the fraud.
The aim, in the estimation of the Abdullah campaign, was either to install Ashraf Ghani, the other candidate for president, or to see Karzai use a postelection crisis as an excuse to extend his term in office.
“Karzai is quite happy everything is tied up,” said the official, who spoke anonymously. “They have engineered it in a way that goes far beyond the normal. It’s industrial-scale fraud.”
The official questioned the neutrality of electoral officials and the courts, saying the candidate had no expectation that complaints would be addressed. Campaign officials also accused Ghani of being complicit in fraud.
Also Monday, a roadside bomb planted by the Afghan Taliban killed five civilians from the same family in the southern Kandahar province , the Interior Ministry said. In a statement, the ministry condemned the killings, adding that three of the victims were children.
The Taliban had warned Afghans not to participate in the presidential runoff vote or face attack. On Sunday, officials said the group had removed fingers of a dozen voters and also killed 11 people.
In his public statements about the vote, Abdullah has suggested there was widespread fraud, though he has not leveled direct accusations at Karzai or other officials. Speaking Sunday, Abdullah questioned reports that more than 7 million Afghans voted.
He also said his campaign staff had witnessed ballot stuffing in Kabul and elsewhere in favor of Ghani.
Karzai’s office scoffed at the accusations coming out of the Abdullah campaign.