Kabul:
Opposition candidates are cautiously optimistic that they may have greatly improved their strength in the next Parliament, despite widespread charges of fraud and low voter turnout that may yet discredit the results of Saturday's election.
The opposition alliance headed by Abdullah Abdullah, who lost a tainted presidential election to Hamid Karzai last year, says that its own vote tallies, based on partial results, show that it is certain to win 70 seats, and once all results are in, it may win as many as 100 in the 249-seat Parliament.
That would be a significant increase from the 40 to 50 supporters that Mr. Abdullah's followers in the National Alliance for Change and Hope could count on in the last Parliament, they said.
Supporters of President Karzai said it was too early to predict an outcome from Saturday's vote, and the Independent Election Commission will not have its first official results until October 8. Opposition leaders also said the results they had been collecting were preliminary and could change, particularly because it was unclear how significant a factor fraud would be.
"In spite of what has happened because of security, people intimidating voters and government authorities being used and in some places fraud, in spite of all that, the initial results so far are that we have a very good number of winners from provinces all over the country," Abdullah said.
There was no similar claim of success from President Karzai's supporters.
Farouk Wardak, the education minister who is widely viewed as the architect of the president's political strategy, said, "I don't have any idea who among the candidates are winning or not winning, but the process we are seeing is democracy taking another step forward and we are happy about it."
Waheed Omer, the spokesman for the president, on Monday told a news conference that Karzai had canceled plans to go to this week's United Nations General Assembly so that he could remain in Kabul during the vote counting in order to "overwatch this process."
"It is premature to make a judgment about the quality of the elections," Omer said. "Our basic understanding, as with other elections in every corner of the world, there are complaints and definitely frauds take place, but we are waiting for the responsible bodies to examine the complaints."
Mahmoud Karzai, the president's older brother, who worked actively on behalf of pro-government candidates, said, "I'm sure it's going to be a mixed Parliament, a mixed result."
He said that early results suggested the president did very well in Kandahar Province, Karzai's home province, where he has strong support among his fellow Pashtuns. "In Kandahar the opposition is not doing so well, but the rest of the country, it's not clear yet, it's too soon," Mahmoud Karzai said. "I see pro-government and government opponents winning."
Both opposition and pro-government officials based their early estimates on election observers working for each of the individual candidates in the voting districts. When polls closed, those observers were allowed to witness the initial vote count, before the ballot boxes were sealed and sent to central collection points.
Still, opposition leaders felt certain they had done well. "The number of clear, winning candidates from our side exceeds 70," said Ahmed Wali Massoud, a prominent supporter of Abdullah. "Most significantly, this is the first time we have had good results in the Pashtun areas."
Abdullah, who is half Pashtun and half Tajik, has his power base in northern, largely Tajik areas. "These are very, very good, very hopeful, very positive results," Massoud said on Monday. "Unless the government tries to change the results, there will be more voices in the opposition."
Massoud said if the opposition succeeded in winning 100 seats of 249, that would be enough to be the dominant force in the Parliament.
Abdullah was more cautious. "It's too early to say if our bloc is larger or smaller than the president's," he said. "But in all provinces we have good results."
A robust opposition in Parliament could serve as a check on Karzai, making it difficult for him to amend the Constitution, ignore corruption or unilaterally make controversial changes in government policy, like welcoming back the Taliban.
Opposition officials said the Pashtun areas where they made gains included Nangarhar Province, where they expect to have gained four seats, and Laghman Province, where they have won at least one.
Farida Khair-u-Nisa in Laghman Province said that her observers had recorded at least 3,560 votes cast for her, which she calculated was enough to win. She said that Abdullah's support for her, including $3,000 in campaign cash, was the decisive factor. "People supported me because they like him," she said.
Her opponent, an incumbent widely identified as a Karzai supporter, was Alhaj Zefnoon Safi. Safi said her observers counted 2,850 votes -- but insisted her opponent had even less. "I am 100 percent sure that I will be the winner and I will go to the Parliament again," she said.
Abdullah's supporters said they believed his allies had even won at least four seats in Kandahar and Helmand, despite widespread claims of fraud there.
Because of low voter turnouts and the large number of candidates -- 2,500 vied for the 249 seats -- vote totals were low, making it easy for fraud in tabulating the votes to be a decisive factor, especially since the process is long and protracted.
Abdullah said that fraud and questions about the integrity of the counting process tempered his optimism about results. "It would have been much better if we had a more transparent and credible process," he said.
Haroun Mir, a political analyst and an independent candidate aligned with neither Karzai nor Abdullah, cautioned that it was too early to judge how well opposition candidates had done.
"It is very difficult to know who is included in the opposition," he said, "since 99 percent of them are running as independents." Even many of the candidates supported by Abdullah are only informally members of his Change and Hope Alliance.
Mir said he also worried that there were still many opportunities for fraud in the counting process, particularly since the I.E.C. and the Electoral Complaints Commission, which threw out more than a million fraudulent votes in the last election, no longer have the level of international oversight present in the previous election. Their chairmen were both appointed by President Karzai.
"The low voter turnout is even more problematic than the fraud that happened," Mir said. "It seems that Afghans are not interested in democracy."