**Afghanistan’s ambassador to the US says a run-off vote to settle the country’s presidential election is likely.**Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad said the run-off should be held within a month. A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said earlier a run-off was unlikely.
Initial results suggest Mr Karzai won the first round outright with about 55% of the vote, with his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, on 28%.
But the August election has been dogged by allegations of massive fraud.
The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has been investigating the allegations, auditing about 10% of votes cast, and is expected to rule within days.
Mr Abdullah has said he hopes that enough votes will be thrown out to reduce Mr Karzai’s share to below 50%, forcing a run-off.
Speaking at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, Mr Jawad said a run-off was “a likely scenario”.
“If that’s what it is, everyone should work very hard to make that happen,” he said.
‘Recipe for disaster’
Analysts say he is the first Karzai aide to make such a statement. Earlier, a spokesman for Mr Karzai, Waheed Omar, was quoted as saying: “We do not see a chance for the elections to go to a second round”.
Mr Jawad said it would not be possible to carry out a run-off within the two-week limit required by the constitution.
“So four weeks will push it into early November and that’s the latest that it will happen because after that it will be extremely cold, especially in northern Afghanistan,” he said.
“But if it’s delayed to spring, this is clearly a recipe for disaster - this creates a lot of confusion, a lot of indecisiveness and also further complicated relations” with the outside world.
On Sunday, Kai Eide, the head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, acknowledged there had been “widespread fraud” in the election, but said any effect on the result remained unclear.
His deputy, Peter Galbraith, was removed from his post earlier this month after alleging that Mr Eide had covered up the extent of the fraud to maintain good relations with Mr Karzai. Mr Eide denies the charge.