KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan tribunal investigating fraud in September's parliamentary elections said Wednesday the opening session of the legislature should be delayed one month to allow judges more time for their inquiry.

The request for a delay throws further uncertainty on an election that many had hoped would demonstrate a commitment by the Afghan government to fight cronyism and corruption after a fraud-marred presidential vote in 2009 nearly undermined the authority of President Hamid Karzai.

Instead, the parliamentary ballot was tainted by familiar allegations of fraud and voter intimidation, and debates since then over who gets to decide the final results have cast even more doubt on the process.

The parliament had been set to start work Jan. 23 after an earlier investigation by an anti-fraud watchdog into the charges of irregularities. That group discarded 1.3 million ballots — nearly a quarter of the total — and disqualified 19 winning candidates before final results were issued on Nov. 24.

But the attorney general concluded that investigation had not been thorough enough and launched a new round of inquiries that led to the creation of the special tribunal in late December.

A spokesman for President Karzai said his office was working on a statement about the court's request for more time but declined to make an immediate comment.

It is unclear if the tribunal has the power to alter the result of any races. Afghan electoral law names the fraud investigation panel as the ultimate arbiter of such issues and the Independent Election Commission as the body to declare final results.

The head of the five-judge tribunal, Sadiqullah Haqiq, told reporters that the court has the power to overturn results and even to invalidate the entire election. To make such decisions, he said, more time is needed.

"We have requested from the president a one-month delay for the opening of the parliamentary session," Haqiq said, explaining that there were more than 300 cases that they needed to investigate before being able to rule on results.

"You cannot find any province in which there was not fraud," he added.

Haqiq chastised election officials for being uncooperative. He quoted a two-sentence letter the commission sent in response to a request for information: "No other institution has the authority to make any decision about the final results of the election. If you have any questions you should go to our website and study the information posted there."

Officials with the Independent Election Commission could not be reached for comment.

Haqiq said a refusal by commission officials to cooperate could throw the entire election into doubt.

"If there is no cooperation with the special court by the IEC in the capital and in the provincial offices, if we cannot make a decision in this one month, then the nation will think about the illegitimacy and legitimacy of the election and the court will make a decision about that," he said. His speech was met with applause by a collection of losing candidates who attended the press conference.

It is generally believed that Karzai is not happy with the new parliament, given his support for renewed investigations after the release of final results. However, many of the winning candidates are unknowns and it is not clear if this group would be more or less critical of Karzai than the previous parliament.

Karzai said previously that he planned to open the parliamentary session on Jan. 23 but also that he would let the investigations opened by the attorney general and the courts run their course.

Winning candidates say Karzai has promised them he will defend the issued results. But there are also hundreds of losing candidates in the election, in which 2,500 contenders ran for the 249 seats. Many of the losers say Karzai has told them he believes they were wronged and that he will do everything to support further investigations.

The election has proved a nagging problem for Karzai's government as it tries to focus with its NATO allies on fighting the Taliban in their southern strongholds. As politicians have argued over seats, violence has surged across the country. 

 On Wednesday, a roadside bombing killed 13 civilians in eastern Paktika province. 

 The violence both on election day and since has made officials reluctant to call for repeat votes even in provinces where the results seem skewed disproportionately toward one ethnic group. A move to annul all or part of the vote could throw the government into crisis — with a parliament seen as illegitimate but no way to hold elections with any better result.

The 2009 presidential election nearly derailed international support for Karzai, turning this year's poll into a test of whether the government is committed to reforms seen as key for justifying NATO funding and troops.

Election commission chairman Fazel Ahmad Manawi said about 1.3 million votes were disqualified out of 5.6 million — meaning about 23 percent of ballots — because of ballot-box stuffing or manipulated totals.

It was not immediately clear what the results released Wednesday would mean for the makeup of the 249-member parliament.

Manawi said he did not have figures on how many of the winners were incumbents, though he said he believed it was about a 50-50 split between those who were returning and new representatives.

Though Karzai has repeatedly bypassed the parliament by issuing laws by decree, the legislative body also is one of the few checks on Karzai's power. A legislature loaded with Karzai allies could make it easier for the president to avoid opposition.

Election officials called the vote a success because they were able to catch the fraud, but the large number of disqualified ballots may tarnish the outcome.

It's possible that those living in provinces with a large number of disqualified ballots could claim that their legitimate ballots weren't counted. And in ethnically mixed provinces, there's a chance that the invalidations may favor one ethnic group over another.

A five-member fraud investigation panel also still needs to rule on more than 2,000 complaints deemed serious enough to affect results before they can be finalized. It was unclear when that would happen.

The election commission previously indicated it would take about three weeks after the preliminary tally was released, but officials would only say Wednesday that final results would be released as soon as possible.

Some candidates may also be disqualified outright if the anti-fraud panel finds that they were behind attempts to manipulate results. The election commission has referred 224 candidates to the panel for investigation because they appeared to be involved in cheating, Manawi said. About 2,500 candidates ran across 34 provinces.

The commission had originally reported a lower turnout figure of about 4.3 million. That earlier figure was based on election day estimates and revised up when the actual tallies came in, said Abdul Ahmadzai, the commission's chief electoral officer.

Asked why the number of disqualified votes matched so neatly with the revised turnout figure, Ahmadzai said it showed that the 4.3 million figure was probably more accurate and that the tallies were later inflated.

In another development, Karzai rejected pleas from the international community to reverse his order to disband all private security companies, saying money spent on those firms should be invested in the national police force instead.

The president has ordered Afghan and international security companies — which protect everything from development projects and NATO supply convoys to private houses — to disband by the end of the year. The decision has drawn criticism from the U.S. and others who worry the Afghan security forces are not ready to assume the burden. 

But Karzai told reporters Wednesday he was tired of hearing complaints from embassies about the order, and said his decision to shut them down was final. 

 "We hope that our international friends will not get back to us or try to put pressure on us or talk about it in the media because none of these are going to work," he said. "These companies are closed — that is it." 

 Also Wednesday, a NATO soldier was killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said in a statement. No further details were provided. 

 Afghan and NATO soldiers also killed more than 10 armed insurgents during an overnight raid in Ziruk district of eastern Paktika province, NATO said Wednesday. 

 And in Bakwa district of southern Nimroz province, eight revelers traveling back from a wedding were killed and six wounded when their minibus hit a land mine, said provincial police chief Abdul Jabar Pardeli. The road is often used by NATO or Afghan troops. 

The backers of the current counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan have reminded us again and again over the past year-and-a-half that their strategy can't work without a legitimate government in Kabul. If that's the case, even they should admit that their plan is sunk. As Brave New Foundation's latest Rethink Afghanistan video shows, Afghanistan's elections were just stolen. Again. 

And, while we continue to extol the virtues of democracy to the Afghans, we're furiously funding and training a massive military force that will answer to a government full of election-stealing thugs. If the Kabul government can't be trusted to run a legitimate election, they certainly can't be trusted with U.S.-bought weapons and a massive U.S. taxpayer-funded military force.

Recall that last year, President Hamid Karzai "won" reelection in a vote that saw about 1.5 million ballots discarded on suspicion of fraud. Now, in the parliamentary elections that happened in late September, "571 polling centers have been tossed and another 1,177 polling stations are under scrutiny," and those are just the ones the corrupt election monitoring body will throw out. Video we obtained from our network in Afghanistan shows a clear and pervasive pattern of vote fraud all across the country, especially in areas cited for "progress" by General Petraeus and his colleagues. 

In one clip, we can see an Afghan Border Police Officer dutifully standing watch as votes are stuffed for a particular candidate.

In another, we see people with clearly marked fingers (the indicator that one has already voted) casting new ballots. 

In still other clips, we find clearly underaged voters casting ballots and people haggling over the price of a bought vote. 

Afghans understand that this election is a fraud. We're not doing ourselves any favors by continuing to cheer on such a corrupt process and by building this illegitimate government a new military machine. We're not fooling anyone, we're damaging our own credibility, and we're sinking the democracy "brand" in the eyes of the world.

It's past time we ended this charade. Rethink Afghanistan is circulating a petition to U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) and U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y., Chair of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee) to cut off funds for the training and equipping of the Afghan military until Kabul takes real steps to address election fraud. Funding a military force that answers to a corrupt, illegitimate government doesn't make Americans safer. It just makes us hypocrites.

Ahmad Zia Rafat, a commissioner on the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said 175 candidates out of a total of around 2,500 had been accused of fraud.

Afghanistan's September 18 poll went ahead despite a Taliban threat to disrupt the vote, but Western nations have been wary of dubbing the election a success after the fiasco of last year's fraud-marred presidential ballot.

The credibility of the Afghan vote will weigh heavily on U.S. President Barack Obama ahead of mid-term Congressional elections next month and as his administration prepares for a review of its Afghan policy amid sagging public support for the war.

"Out of those candidates accused of fraud, 25 are current members of parliament," Rafat said. "If the accusations of fraud against the candidates are proven, their votes will be nullified and they will be presented to the courts."

As of Saturday, a total of 4,169 complaints had been lodged with the ECC, Rafat said, adding around 55 percent of those were categorized serious enough to be able to affect the final outcome if upheld by the commission.

More than 40 percent of complaints received relate to polling irregularities, the ECC said, and some 17 percent to violence or intimidation. Other complaints include problems in accessing polling sites and counting irregularities.

Preliminary results were due to be released last Saturday but the election body last week pushed that date back until mid-October to allow more time for verifications and recounts amid the fraud allegations.

The government-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC) says it has nullified part or all of the votes from 442 polling centers and has ordered an audit and recount of votes from 828 polling centers.

Out of around 6,800 polling centers slated to open on election day, more than 1,500 remained closed due to poor security.

At least 17 people died in election day violence, though no major attacks hit the parliamentary election.

Most Afghans are sensitive to fraud after President Hamid Karzai's re-election in 2009 was tainted by widespread graft that has undermined his credibility at home and abroad. More than a third of his votes were tossed out by the ECC last year.

Violence in Afghanistan is also at its highest levels since the start of the war in late 2001 with rising foreign troop and civilian casualties.

Obama last year ordered an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to try and stem a resurgent Taliban but the president has said he will start to withdraw combat troops next year.

A large portion of the polling centers in the nation ended up outside of the final results, with more than 1,500 of the nation’s 6,800 centers never even opening. Past that, officials have thrown out the results from another 442, and 828 others remain under scrutiny. More could follow.

Though Western officials praised the election as a “success” the data has shown a far lower than expected turnout, higher than expected violence and absurd levels of fraud. One provincial election chief was even arrested for overtly rigging votes, while the release of the preliminary vote results has been delayed by the overwhelming number of complaints.

The Afghan Presidential election last year saw heretofore unprecedent levels of fraud in an ostensibly free election, and officials had expressed concern that very little had changed with regard to the oversight in the election. In the end this concern was vindicated, as both violence and complaints of overt fraud far exceeded even last year’s vote.

Some arrests have been reported and the release of preliminary results continues to be delayed, but some officials are expressing concern that even as the evidence goes public the Independent Election Commission (IEC) is coming under more and more pressure to commit fraud of its own, altering the vote count in favor of some well connected candidates.

This may, however, be a very secondary concern. The fact of the matter is that nearly a quarter of polls didn’t even open on the day of the election, and that a quarter of the votes are being thrown out because of fraud, while violence, ballot stuffing and intimidation were reported nationwide. It seems impossible that anything resembling a truthful result can emerge from this fiasco, even assuming (however unlikely) that the election commissions are honest.

Electoral officials sifting through thousands of complaints of vote fraud in last month's parliamentary elections said Monday that ballots from about one-tenth of Afghanistan's voting centers had been tossed out, with more disqualifications likely.

The release of preliminary results, now due Wednesday, has been delayed twice as authorities scrutinize a welter of allegations including ballot box stuffing and vote buying, as well as armed intimidation of voters.

Karzai ultimately prevailed after his main rival dropped out of a runoff vote, but the tainted election set the tone for a tempestuous second term, marked by widening public discontent with his administration and quarrels with his Western backers.

A spokesman for the Independent Election Commission, the government body that oversaw the vote, said results from 571 polling centers — out of more than 5,500 that operated on election day — had been invalidated. That recalibration does not necessarily translate into a corresponding percentage of the vote, because the centers vary in size.

The spokesman, Noor Mohammad Noor, said votes from another 1,277 centers had been recounted and adjusted.

At the same time, the main panel investigating complaints reported that votes from 120 polling centers had been nullified because of "serious electoral violations." Ahmad Zia Rafat, a spokesman for the Electoral Complaints Commission, said the panel was still investigating nearly 5,000 complaints of fraud and irregularities.

Because the final result will not be released until all those complaints have been adjudicated, the preliminary figures expected Wednesday may not provide much of a clue as to whether the new parliament will be inclined to challenge Karzai's policies.

Allies of the president were considered likely to continue dominating the 249-seat lower house of parliament, but those loyal to Abdullah Abdullah, his main challenger in the presidential race, probably will make up a substantial minority.

Clouded election results probably would heat up the continuing rivalry between Karzai and Abdullah and perhaps deepen ethnic rifts that are a hallmark of Afghan politics. Disputes over the results also could stoke tensions among warlord-style powerbrokers in various regions.

Many of the invalidated votes were cast in provinces where significant fighting is taking place between Western forces and insurgents, including Kunar and Paktia provinces near the eastern border with Pakistan and Kandahar province in the south.

Fighting generally dies down during Afghanistan's harsh winters, but confrontations have remained intense into the early fall. The Interior Ministry said Monday that insurgents a day earlier had ambushed and killed eight Afghan security forces who were guarding a NATO convoy in volatile Helmand province.

Also Monday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization reported the deaths of as many as 14 suspected insurgent fighters Sunday in airstrikes in Baghlan province, in the north, and Nimruz province, in the south.

The coalition in recent months has been making more aggressive use of airpower in staging pinpoint raids against midlevel insurgent commanders, and Western military officials claim the strikes have seriously disrupted insurgents' ability to stage attacks.