AFP/AP/Shutterstock

HAMID KARZAI has been dealt a painful blow as the saga of Afghanistan's torturous presidential election drags on. An independent investigation has found that nearly one in three of the votes supposedly cast for the Afghan president in August were fraudulent. The results of an audit by the country's Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), published on Monday October 19th, put Mr Karzai's share of the vote a couple of points below the 50% that he required to win another term without facing a run-off against his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

But the UN-backed electoral commission is not the only game in town. Mr Karzai's supporters immediately questioned the authority of the ECC, which is dominated by Western officials. His supporters claim that the final reckoning can only be delivered by the Independent Election Commission, a body packed with people appointed by—and loyal to—the president.

Diplomats in Kabul fear a “car crash” outcome where the IEC, under Mr Karzai's orders, refuses to accept the results or mounts a legal challenge questioning the ECC's orders. A weekend of long and acrimonious meetings between officials from the two sides suggests that the IEC will indeed challenge the results.

The ECC had hoped to persuade the Afghan election body to accept its findings before making a formal announcement. But a UN source suggests that the commission was eventually forced to publish after failing to make any headway. And there seems little room for negotiation. The UN is adamant that Mr Karzai has no grounds to challenge the result, saying the country's electoral law makes the ECC decisions final.

Mr Karzai may well appeal to Afghanistan's Supreme Court and there is a fair chance that the judges whom he appointed would side with him. At the least that could cause sufficiently long delays to make it impossible to hold a run-off election before the onset of heavy winter snows, which in turn would make polling impossible in large parts of the country. The latest date for an election is thought to be mid-November.

Certainly Mr Karzai shows little sign that he will be shamed into accepting the result of the ECC's inquest. Yet an analysis of its findings by Democracy International, an American election-monitoring group, makes for devastating reading for Mr Karzai. Not only has his share of the vote dropped, it also shows that 955,000 votes were fraudulent. That is almost a third of the 3.1m he polled, according to a preliminary tally.

Ever since the election on August 20th Mr Karzai has claimed that allegations of massive fraud were the invention of a hostile international press. He remains firmly in denial about the level of cheating, which he still maintains was small and “normal by international standards”. Yet Mr Karzai may have got off lightly: if the ECC had widened the scope of its investigation it would probably have uncovered many more discredited votes.

Considerable uncertainty exists over what happens next. UN officials say that ballot papers could be dispatched to polling stations around Afghanistan at a moment's notice. But there is little appetite for a second round among many of the parties, who fear it would exacerbate political tensions in the country and do little to boost the legitimacy of whoever runs.

Turnout was disappointing first time: only 4.3m people cast legitimate votes (after 1.3m dodgy ones were excluded). It is likely to be further depressed in a second round where voters would fear more Taliban violence. A run-off would also lack the added attraction of the provincial council election that took place alongside the presidential election in August.

Dr Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has seen his share of the votes increase from 28% to 32% (with a mere 192,000 of his 1.6m votes disqualified) according to Democracy International. But, even if he were to run, his chances of upsetting the original result look slender. Election officials also privately admit there is nothing they can do in the short time available to make changes to prevent a repeat of the rampant level of fraud that characterised the first round. “If anything it will just allow the fraudsters to work out how to cheat more subtly,” a UN official admits.