Mubaruz Khan didn't bother to vote when Afghans went to the polls in the country's second-ever democratic election last month. He was too busy eking out a living selling cigarettes and soda for $3 a day, and didn't think voting would make a difference in his life.

Millions like Khan stayed home on Aug. 20, a sharp contrast to 2004, when Afghans jammed polling stations to give President Hamid Karzai his first term. Ominous warnings from the Taliban suppressed turnout, but some Afghans said they were also discouraged by the government's failure to halt endemic corruption, spiraling unemployment and crumbling security.

"We want peace. We want security. We want job opportunities," the 55-year-old Khan said Monday. "Otherwise, the democracy and the elections that they are all shouting about every day mean nothing to us."

Nearly a month after Afghanistan voted, the election's messy aftermath has exposed the difficulties of installing a Western-style democracy in a land that has never seen one — and raised questions over whether an electoral system can take root eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that ended Taliban's radical Islamist rule.

The country's election commission originally hoped to declare a certified winner this week, but claims of ballot-stuffing and phantom voters have pushed that timeline back weeks, if not months, leaving the country in political limbo at a time the Taliban is unleashing a record number of attacks. Thousands of fake ballots were submitted across the country, and many returns showed Karzai winning 100 percent of the vote in some districts.

The latest partial count has Karzai leading with 54 percent to leading challenger Abdullah Abdullah's 28 percent, and a full count was expected later this week. If enough votes are eliminated for fraud complaints, Karzai's tally could fall below the 50-percent threshold, forcing a two-man runoff.

In a country dominated by tribal and ethnic loyalties — and scarred by years of civil war and Taliban rule — it's not yet clear if democracy will take hold.

KABUL -- The leading challenger in Afghanistan's national elections warned Monday that if President Hamid Karzai wins another term based on a fraudulent vote, the U.S.-led war against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan will fail.

"We will have a vacuum of power, security and stability," Abdullah Abdullah told McClatchy Newspapers. "Five years of illegitimate rule cannot be sustained by more troops or more resources."

Abdullah was the runner-up in the Aug. 20 presidential election that Karzai won, according to disputed initial tallies. Evidence of widespread fraud, however, has put a cloud over the outcome, which has yet to be announced. Abdullah, an ophthalmologist-turned-politician, is hoping that that fraud investigations will strip enough votes from Karzai to force a runoff either this autumn or after the snow clears in the spring.

Abdullah said Western publics are unlikely to tolerate a political outcome based on fraud. He said the Western nations already are paying "to maintain this corrupt government" and have to justify their presence before their own people. "It's not like Western governments can cheat their own populations forever," he said.

A Karzai spokesman on Monday said that Abdullah's comments reflect a candidate who fears defeat and who is now trying to undermine the Afghan electoral system.

Once an international emissary for the United Front, an anti-Taliban alliance, Abdullah received strong support in northern Afghanistan provinces that from 1996 to 2001 served as a stronghold for the Front, also known as the Northern Alliance.

Some of the main supply routes for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan run through Northern Alliance strongholds, and so does some of the country's electrical grid. Many Western officials are concerned that Abdullah supporters might block some of the routes or take control of the infrastructure if Karzai declares himself the winner of the elections.

The issue has also drawn the attention of top tier officials in the State Department as President Barack Obama deliberates future U.S. troop levels for Afghanistan. On Monday, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman denied a McClatchy weekend report that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Karzai last week to urge that the fraud standards not be relaxed.

Abdullah said that on a visit to Charikar in Padrwan Province north of Kabul Sunday, he met frustrated supporters who wanted to demonstrate their discontent. He said he urged them to be calm but added that he couldn't predict what will happen.

"I will do my utmost to avoid violence. I know how difficult it is to reverse things once they go in that direction," Abdullah said. "But I can't guarantee anything and everything that will happen in this country. Nobody can."