Kabul - One of only two Afghans on a UN-backed complaints commission that is looking into fraud allegation in Afghanistan's August elections resigned Monday, citing foreign interference.

Election officials meanwhile said the vote could go to runoff as more fraudulent ballots are likely to be thrown out following the introduction of a new fraud-tallying policy.

Maulavi Mustafa Barakzai, one of two Afghans in the five-member Election Complaints Commission (ECC) said Monday that he resigned after he observed "unacceptable foreign interferences" in the body's work.

Barakzai accused the three UN-appointed members, a Canadian, a US and a Dutch national of taking important decision in his absence.

"Every day I was seeing new faces and I don't know who they were and from which countries they were coming from, so I conclude those were all interferences," he said.

Reacting to his resignation, the ECC said in a statement that it was "disappointed at the resignation of an important member at this crucial time." It added that Barakzai was "an integral member of the commission and took part equally in all commissioner meetings."

The ECC said that it would remain dedicated to the elections process and "This will not distract the ECC from continuing to focus on the task at hand."

UN and election officials, however, said that Barakzai's resignation was probably connected to the ECC's decision to change the fraud investigation rules on Monday. The officials were speaking on conditions of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The new rules are likely to throw out more fraudulent ballots from the initial count and could force incumbent President Hamid Karzai to face a run-off with Abdullah Abdullah, his top challenger.

Barakzai is widely seen as a supporter of Karzai. During an interview with an Afghan private TV channel last month, Barakzai had said that the audit of 10 per cent of the vote would not lead to a second round of voting.

Karzai won re-election with 54.6 per cent of the vote in preliminary results but widespread and credible allegations of fraud have forced the EEC to conduct a sample recount of 10 per cent of the vote, a process that began last week.

United Nations Special Envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide, who himself faced accusations by his sacked deputy of hiding information on vote fraud and of siding with Karzai, said Sunday that "there was widespread fraud" in the elections.

Karzai on Sunday accused some elements in Western countries of interfering in the election process and of stalling the outcome, which was slated to be announced around mid-September.

Under the new rule, if enough of ballots are discounted and the Karzai's share of vote falls below 50 per cent, a runoff would be held within weeks, the ballot papers for which have already been printed by the UN.

Previous fraud-tallying rules would have benefitted Karzai, his rivals claimed.

Officials of the Afghan Independent Election Commission, which conducted the polls, have previously said the run-off would have to be held three weeks after final results become available and before snowfalls made rural areas in central and northern Afghanistan inaccessible. (dpa)