KABUL - Afghanistan's U.N.-backed election watchdog on Monday sent its long-awaited ruling over fraud investigations into the August 20 presidential poll to the country's election commission.

Now that we have the ECC (U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission) orders, we expect IEC (Independent Election Commission) to implement those orders with haste and move swiftly to issue the final certified results or the need for a runoff as required by Afghan electoral law, said Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the United Nations in Kabul.

If the Electoral Complaints Commission probe determines there are enough fraudulent votes to tip President Hamid Karzai's vote below 50 percent, the incumbent will face a second round against his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

(Reporting by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Maria Golovnina and Paul Tait)

Afghanistan