REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KABUL - Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said Tuesday that he received calls from President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after he refused to accept the preliminary result of the vote citing fraud.

The turmoil came as violence escalated around the country. A suicide bomber struck Afghan and foreign forces near a clinic in the eastern province of Parwan, killing at least 16 people, including four Czech soldiers.

Abdullah told thousands of supporters at a gathering in Kabul that Kerry would be flying to the Afghan capital on Friday for meetings and to help defuse the crisis. State Department officials accompanying Kerry in Beijing declined to comment on his travel plans.

Abdullah told his supporters that the results of the election were fraudulent, but asked them to give him a few more days to negotiate.

"We denounce and do not accept the results of the fraudulent vote. I assure you people of Afghanistan that I will sacrifice for you, but I will never accept a fraudulent government," he told his supporters, many angry over the result. "We announce that only the government elected through clean votes will come to power."

The Afghan Independent Election Commission released preliminary election results Monday showing former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai well in the lead for the presidency but said no winner could be declared because millions of ballots were being audited for fraud.

Preliminary results announced Monday showed that Ahmadzai had about 4.5 million votes, or 56 percent, while Abdullah had 3.5 million votes, or 44 percent, according to the commission. Turnout was more than 50 percent. Abdullah has refused to accept any results until all fraudulent ballots are invalidated.

The election commission acknowledged that vote rigging had occurred and said ballots from about 7,000 more of the nearly 23,000 polling stations would be audited. Abdullah charged that outgoing President Hamid Karzai, Ahmadzai and the election commission were colluding against him. There were fears that Abdullah could ignore the result and declare victory, something he hinted at during his speech.

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