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Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah meets with the media in Kabul on Saturday.David Guttenfelder

Hamid Karzai's chief rival has vowed to block the Afghan president's re-election, accusing him of orchestrating massive electoral fraud in a desperate attempt to secure a second term in office.

Abdullah Abdullah's charges of vote rigging were not new, but his deeply personal attack on Mr. Karzai Sunday has considerably ratcheted up tensions ahead of Tuesday's preliminary election results.

If Mr. Karzai is proclaimed the outright winner, Dr. Abdullah has pledged to legally challenge his authority in the courts. His comments have also raised the prospect of violent demonstrations by his supporters.

"Widespread rigging has taken place by the incumbent, through his campaign team, and through the state apparatus, through government officials," Dr. Abdullah told reporters at a press conference Sunday afternoon.

"This has to be prevented. That's critical for the survival of the process and that's critical as far as the hope for a better life of the Afghan people is concerned," he said.

In the immediate wake of last week's election, both Mr. Karzai and Dr. Abdullah's campaign claimed victory, citing the tallies of their own observers who were posted at polling stations across the country.

Dr. Abdullah's climb down Sunday coincided with his claims of new evidence of electoral fraud in the southern provinces, Mr. Karzai's traditional base of support, where voter turnout was reportedly suppressed by Taliban threats of violence.

Dr. Abdullah suggested Mr. Karzai had used his influence to preside over intimidation and ballot-box stuffing to swing the vote in his favour.

"The initial reports are a bit alarming," said Dr. Abdullah, who once served in Mr. Karzai's cabinet as foreign minister.

His statements also came in the wake of a series of reports, issued by various election-observer organizations over the weekend, that documented proxy-voting, pressure on illiterate voters at the ballot box, and specific threats against women voters on election day.

Western and Afghan officials have been reluctant to publicly comment on how the allegations of fraud might influence the ballot count.

United Nations, American, Canadian and Afghan officials have broadly praised the election as a success, with Washington expressing cautious optimism that Afghans would respect the result.

Mr. Karzai, for his part, has argued that if he were re-elected he would need a strong mandate to deliver on his promises of reform and institution-building.

However, privately, there is an emerging consensus among some Western and Afghan officials that in light of the allegations of fraud, a win for Mr. Karzai would lack credibility, resulting in instability across the country.

"A runoff might actually be in the best interest of the country," said one European diplomatic source. "If Karzai wins with no honest discussion of the fraud observed, that it would be a huge setback," she said.

Dr. Abdullah said he has filed more than one hundred complaints with Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission, an independent body charged with determining whether allegations of fraud are legitimate.

Grant Kippen, a Canadian who serves as chair of the ECC, urged patience while teams of investigators begin sifting through the charges - a process that could take weeks.

So far, his office has received 250 complaints from presidential and provincial council campaigns, including Dr. Abdullah's. Thirty-five of the complaints are, so far, considered "top-priority," with the potential to affect the vote count.

"We've had allegations of voter intimidation, people in the polling stations, candidates or their agents intimidating people, police intimidating voters, people taking ballot boxes out of the voting stations and returning with them full," Mr. Kippen said in an interview with The Globe and Mail at his office, a concrete compound fortified with sandbags, barricades and barbed wire in downtown Kabul.

Mr. Kippen said the bulk of complaints, from district polling stations across the country, have not yet arrived for processing.

If his ECC investigators find evidence of fraud they have the power to annul ballots and disqualify candidates.

Their rulings could have a significant impact on tomorrow's preliminary vote count, before the final tally is formally certified on Sept. 17th.

Mr. Kippen referred to the recent the posturing of rival presidential candidates as "a lot of noise."

"We're going to have to do a credible, thorough job of investigating those complaints that are material to this election and adjudicating them. If that takes time, it takes time," he said.

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