Finally the first-ever direct presidential election was held peacefully in the post-conflict Afghanistan Saturday but the political rivalry among the US-backed leader Hamid Karzai and his opponents continues on Sunday as the opposition candidates rejected the poll as bogus.

Through a resolution issued at the end of the voting day on Saturday evening, all the 15 challengers of Karzai's termed the polls as eyewash and called for its revision.

"This presidential election is a bogus one, its result is unacceptable and so we demand holding a new election," the resolution read.

Karzai's archrival Sattar Sirat categorically stated that "any government comes to power through this fake election would have no legitimacy."

Gathering in a loose alliance, the opposition candidates who failed to contest Karzai from a united platform apparently would continue their political fight against the incumbent and would-be president for a while to block his agenda.

Despite their united stance on the election's result, they would not be able to keep their alliance intact for the longer time as differences are tangible in their rank and almost each of them follows his own agenda.

"I am an independent candidate and have my own platform," a Karzai's rival Hajji Mohammad Mohaqiq told reporters Sunday morning a day after holding election.

Distancing himself from fellow candidates, he did not boycott the election's outcome but called for investigation into the alleged fraud.

"I am calling upon the UN to constitute an independent commission in consultation with the candidates and initiate a thorough investigation into the allegations," he told journalists a day after the poll.

He also categorically stated that he would reject the election's result if the allegation was not probed thoroughly.

"All the allegations should be investigated, otherwise the election's result will be considered as invalid," warned Mohaqiq.

Disputes emerged after washable ink instead of inedible one in marking voters' thumbs was used at some polling stations which made it possible for the votes to be used more than once.

Mohaqiq also accused the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB)or the joint UN-Afghan election commission of negligence, saying "forgery and malpractice in the polling stations reflects the JEMB's incompetence."

In the meantime, the joint UN-Afghan election body rejected the allegations as unfounded but pledged to initiate a probe into it.

The would-be president Hamid Karzai also dismissed the accusations as baseless, saying the opposition candidates' demand for holding a new election was "unjustified."

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has also discarded opposition candidates' demand to boycott the election's result as unfair.

"We concur with the Joint Electoral Management Body that the candidates' demand to nullify the election is unjustified," OSCE's ambassador to Afghanistan Robert Barry said Sunday.
 
However, he was appreciative of the polls saying "October 9 was a historic day in Afghanistan, and the millions who came to the polls clearly wanted to turn from the rule of the gun to the rule of law."

The current political rivalry, according to analysts, would continue to undermine Karzai's ambitious agenda with regard to there building process but could not stop it.

"No doubt removing or convincing opposition candidates is a challenge for Karzai to implant his agenda but not an immovable block as some of them are too isolated to win a single vote," Kabul University professor Nasrullah Stanikzai observed.

(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2004)