KABUL — Despite accusations of widespread fraud and threats of protests, Afghanistan's election commission announced preliminary presidential runoff results Monday, with a huge caveat: There is no winner yet, but millions of votes could be subject to a special audit for fraud.
The country's Independent Election Commission said Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai was more than a million votes ahead of Abdullah Abdullah, with a total of more than 8.1 million votes counted.
That tally, far higher than previously estimated, cast even more doubt on an election already marred by weeks of conflict.
The US State Department emphasized the preliminary results were "not final or authoritative" and demanded that Afghan officials "implement a thorough audit."
The results showed Ghani had about 4.5 million votes, or 56 percent, while Abdullah had 3.5 million, or 44 percent, the commission said. Turnout was more than 50 percent.
Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani, chairman of the commission, said that before the announcement Monday, the panel had thrown out more than 11,000 votes. About 60 percent of the votes disqualified had been cast for Ahmadzai, he said, with the reminder cast for Abdullah.
In addition, the two candidates had agreed for votes from nearly a third of the country's 22,000 polling stations to be set aside for a special audit. It will now be up to the separate Election Complaints Commission to conduct the inquiry.
The complaints commission said it was ready to do the audit on top of complaints it was already adjudicating, if the campaigns requested it. But no such request had been made, said Nader Mohseni, a spokesman for the complaints panel.
Neither Ahmadzai, a former finance minister and World Bank official, nor Abdullah, a former foreign minister, offered immediate reaction.
It was not clear whether the two campaigns had reached any agreement. The number of stations to be audited, about 7,000, appeared to be lower than what the Abdullah campaign had been seeking.
After preliminary results were announced, Nuristani said, "There is no doubt that the negotiation between the candidates continues." But he did not provide any specifics.
Western officials had been hoping for a smooth transition before the withdrawal of US and allied combat troops by year's end. Whoever wins will oversee an impoverished country with high unemployment and declining foreign aid.
Both candidates have promised to sign a security pact with the Obama administration that would allow nearly 10,000 US forces to remain to conduct training and counterterrorism operations. A disruption in the announcement of election results could mean another delay in finalizing that agreement.