The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, the top election monitoring group, also catalogued violations such as people using multiple voter cards and underage voting.

    The group said there were widespread problems with supposedly independent election officials at polling stations trying to influence the way people voted.

    One of the candidates even demonstrated in front of media representatives in Kabul as to how easily the indelible ink for marking thumbs of voters could be removed, for the purpose of multiple voting.

    However, Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said allegations of vote rigging and fraud were expected, but observers should wait for the official complaints process to run its course before judging the vote's legitimacy.

    "We have disputed elections in the United States. There may be some questions. That would not surprise me at all. I expect it," he told a reporter in Herat city of western Afghanistan.

    "There are always rumors in Afghanistan," Holbrooke said, adding that the U.S. government would wait for rulings from Afghanistan's monitoring bodies, the Independent Election Commission, and the complaints commission, before trying to judge the legitimacy of the vote.

    Holbrooke categorically said, "The United States and the international community will respect the process set up by Afghanistan itself."

    There is also criticism about the lengthy process adopted for announcing the election result.

    While the preliminary results are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday, five days after the polls, the final result will be declared by the middle of next month.

    However, accumulation of election results from thousands of polling stations in 34 provinces of Afghanistan, spread over a rough landscape and amid growing insurgency, is undoubtedly a time-consuming and difficult process.

    Although there was fear of widespread violence and attacks on the polling days as Taliban had threatened to disrupt the process, yet barring a handful of violent attacks, the election was by and large held in a peaceful manner.

    Although the election complaints commission's chief has apprehended that the growing charges of fraud could sway the final result of the election, observers do not expect the allegations to hamper the process of election result.

    Election is a new phenomenon in Afghanistan and leveling of such allegations after the poll is natural in a country shattered by insurgency and warlordism.

    Secondly, such allegations are also being leveled, often by defeated candidates, even in advanced democracies.

    However, the allegations would certainly lower the credibility of Hamid Karzai, who is most likely to win the election, as a president elected through fair and free election.

    In April, the Kremlin formally ended an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, which has experienced two bloody wars in the past 15 years.