The office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has issued a furious statement criticising a report by EU voting monitors that said as many as 1.5 million ballots in last month's elections could be fraudulent.

Earlier on Wednesday, the European Union Election Observation Mission to Afghanistan reported that their analysis of the August election revealed that almost a quarter of the votes counted so far were suspicious. The head of the EU mission Dimitra Ioannou said that of the 1.5 million votes identified as suspicious, 1.1 million were for Hamid Karzai with 300,000 suspicious ballots going to his main rival, Dr Abdullah Abdullah. The rest of the dubious ballots went to other candidates.

A statement from President Karzai's campaign office said the announcement by the EU mission was, "partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution". Earlier, opposition leader Dr Abdullah claimed that there had been fraud on a massive scale in order to return Mr Karzai to office.

If Mr Karzai wins more than 50 percent of the vote, a second round of voting will not be necessary. According to provisional results released by the Independent Election Commission, Mr Karzai has 54.6 percent while Dr Abdullahhas 27.7 percent.