More results were expected to trickle out of Afghanistan’s election counting house yesterday as officials raised the death toll from a truck bombing that highlighted the problems the eventual winner will face.
Authorities in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second biggest city and the spiritual home of the Taliban, raised the toll from Tuesday night’s truck bomb to 43 dead and 65 wounded, all civilians.
The attack was the worst of its kind in over a year and came the same day four US servicemen were killed, making this year the deadliest year for foreign forces since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
The Kandahar bomb also shattered a relative lull in violence since last Thursday’s election and the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan at the weekend.
The first tranche of results released on Tuesday showed incumbent President Hamid Karzai with 41 percent and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, with 39 percent in a race that will go to a second round unless either gets more than 50 percent.
Around 30 minor candidates account for the remainder of the vote, but their supporters could be decisive in a runoff.
Election officials warned against drawing conclusions about the final count from the initial samples.
They have promised to provide daily updates but the complete count is not due until next Thursday.
The results suggest a disappointing turnout of only about 5 million votes in a country of 30 million people and an estimated 15 million eligible voters.
Taliban fighters had launched attacks and threatened reprisals against voters during the election, scaring many Afghans away from the polls.
Meanwhile, rescue workers yesterday sifted through the rubble of the deadliest explosion in Afghanistan since a suicide car bomber killed more than 60 people, including two senior diplomats, in an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7 last year.
The force of the explosion on Tuesday shattered windows and brought down buildings, trapping people under the rubble as they were breaking their Ramadan fast, said General Ghulam Ali Wahdat, the southern police zone commander.
The truck bomb blew up near a Japanese construction company, a guest house used by foreigners and government offices.
Kandahar is the province of Karzai, who ordered an investigation and the “arrest those responsible as soon as possible,” his office said.
Afghan and foreign forces sealed off the site in the troubled city, which was an old Taliban regime powerbase, as they sifted through the rubble from over 10 buildings destroyed in the explosion, an Agence France-Presse photographer said.
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