President Hamid Karzai has expressed concern about the investigation into election fraud in Afghanistan.]
In an interview on US TV, Mr Karzai said the resignation of an Afghan member of the UN-backed panel "cast serious doubt" on its work. Mr Karzai said that fraud was likely to have taken place in the August vote, but called it "good and fair".
He leads the preliminary count but the panel's findings due imminently - could force the vote to a second round. The election has been mired in controversy since it was held in August, with accusations that fraud was committed on a huge scale.
Mr Karzai's interview came a day after Mustafa Barakzai quit the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which is investigating irregularities. The panel is due to rule in the next week on the outcome of its findings.
"I am not going to say the Electoral Complaints Commission is illegitimate," Mr Karzai told ABC network's Good Morning America. But he added: "That resignation has cast serious doubt on the functioning of the commission.
"I hope it should do everything now to remove those suspicions and to remove and other stigmas and to prove it is impartial and fair and not dictated to by foreign elements and government," he said.
Mr Barakzai, a Supreme Court judge, had alleged that foreigners were "interfering" in the panel's work and Afghans had little input in its key decisions. He was one of two Afghans on the five-member UN commission.
A deputy campaign manager for Mr Karzai's closest challenger in the election, Abdullah Abdullah, said the resignation was politically-motivated. "Barakzai's resignation has a direct connection to Karzai. It was Karzai's idea," Saleh Mohammad Registani told the Associated Press news agency.
"Karzai is trying to bring the work of the ECC into question." A recount of a sample of suspect ballots is almost complete, the UN said on Sunday. About 10% of votes cast in August are being audited.
Mr Karzai leads preliminary results with about 55% of the vote, considerably ahead of Dr Abdullah, a former foreign minister who has 28%. There would be a second round run-off if neither secures 50% of ballots cast.
<<Print>>