Karzai has 54 pct of Afghan vote amid fraud claims

President Hamid Karzai surpassed for the first time the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off in Afghanistan's presidential election, according to preliminary results released Tuesday, but with fraud allegations rising, a UN-backed commission and the US ordered a re-count of tainted ballots. With results in from almost 92 percent of the country's polling sites, Karzai has 54.1 percent of the votes while former foreign minister Abdullah's standing has slipped dramatically. He now has 28.3 percent of the vote. Possibility of run-off has been ended after Karzai got more than 50 percent votes. But, the Electoral Complaints Commission a separate UN-backed body charged with investigating the vote ordered a re-count Tuesday at polling stations where it had found convincing evidence of fraud, meaning Karzai could still have votes taken away from him. More than 720 major fraud charges have been lodged with the complaints commission.