Ashraf Ghani claims Afghan presidential election victory --- Ashraf Ghani believes he has won Afghanistan's heavily contested presidential election by more than 1.3 million votes, according to data compiled by his campaign team. -- Ghani said the vocal support of clerics, a higher turnout of women, a series of televised town-hall style meetings and polling day transport for potential voters enabled him to pick up support from more than 2 million extra voters in the second round of the poll. -- "One of the reasons, the most significant, is that we convened a meeting of more than 3,000 ulema [(Islamic scholars] … these, after they endorsed us, carried out a mosque-to-mosque campaign, issued fatwas and [held] Friday prayers where they asked the women to participate," the former World Bank official told journalists at a news conference in Kabul. -- Unofficial data collected and released by his team estimates he won 4.2m votes in a runoff on 14 June, while his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, claimed 2.9m. In the first round Ghani received 2.1m votes. -- Plans to release the first phase of results this week were put on hold after Abdullah, a former foreign minister and mujahideen doctor, said the results had been skewed by "blatant fraud" and withdrew from the vote-counting process. -- On Friday he organised protests across Kabul, with thousands of demonstrators marching through the city to meet near the presidential palace. Some carried anti-fraud banners but others were shouting "Death to Ghani" and "Death to [vice-presidential candidate Abdul Rashid] Dostum." -- Abdullah's team has accused electoral authorities of colluding with Ghani to steal the election, and released audio recordings of phone calls in which officials discuss ballot box stuffing with a very crude code, calling the containers of votes "stuffed sheep". -- Abdullah said the man caught on tape was the chief election officer, Ziaulhaq Amarkhil, and demanded his resignation or removal as a condition of returning to the formal election process. Amarkhil stepped down the day after the recordings were made public, but said they had been faked and he was only giving up his job for the sake of national unity. -- Ghani has strongly denied the fraud allegations, saying his team had been victims, not perpetrators, of fraud. They had filed more than 1,800 complaints to the official election monitors, Ghani told journalists, adding that he would reject any ballot cast for him that was found to be illegal. -- He said it was vital for Afghanistan to stick to a schedule of announcing preliminary results on 2 July, and then resolving any disputes in time for a 2 August inauguration. Invitations have already been sent out to some diplomats by the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai. -- Afghanistan's economy has been put on hold by the uncertainty surrounding the leadership, and the international community is waiting to make crucial decisions about long-term support after soldiers leave the country. -- "The international calendar cannot wait," Ghani said. "Governance is at a standstill. People want certainty, not ambiguity. We, the people, must have clarity." -- All Nato combat forces are due to leave by the end of this year. A few thousand soldiers may stay to help train the Afghan army, but Karzai has refused to sign a long-term cooperation deal with the US that provides a legal framework for the mission. He has said it is a decision for his successor. -- Abdullah has called for United Nations mediation, which Ghani said he would welcome; a senior UN envoy has warned them there must be a winner and a loser, and called for "statesmanship, not gamesmanship". - More, Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul - Guardian