Kabul (AsiaNews) – Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) invalidated votes from 83 polling stations in three provinces, including President Hamid Karzai's home province of Kandahar, where it had found clear and convincing evidence of fraud. Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah accused the president's camp of rigging the vote. Incumbent President Karzai is for now leading the vote count with 54 per cent, a result which would ensure him a victory without a runoff. However, everyone is wondering whether the results will be validated or not, and new elections called.
All presidential ballots in five polling stations in Paktika were invalidated because “the ballots were not legally cast, or were not legally counted”. Elsewhere investigations found other cases of fraud, including unfolded ballots, miscounted ballots, missing material, and lists of voters with numerous fictitious card numbers.
According to the IEC, there are 600-700 presidential ballot papers and the same number of ballots for provincial elections in each of Afghanistan's 25,450 polling stations.
Grant Kippen, chairman of the Election Complaints Commission (ECC), said that voting will not be repeated and rigged ballots will simply be discounted from the final tally.
In any event a decision as to whether uphold or scrap the vote will be taken shortly because the uncertainty is increasing tensions. Opinions are divided. For some a rigged elections is illegitimate; others note that only a few thousand ballots are involved and urge everyone to wait till the final vote count is announced before voicing their opinion about the election’s validity.
Local sources told AsiaNews that this matter is overshadowing another important fact, namely that about 50 per cent of Afghanistan’s 17 million registered voters cast their ballot, and this despite threats by the Taliban, attacks that killed tens of people and widespread illiteracy.
“In 2004, 70 per cent of voters cast their ballot,” said the source on condition of anonymity. “But then there was much more confidence in a quick reconstruction; radical change was seen as possible. Now people do not expect any special improvement in their lives, whoever wins. But at least they tried to show again their trust in the democratic process, and this despite the widespread criticism of the Karzai administration.”
For US envoy Richard Holbrooke vote rigging is the result of the extreme conditions in which the elections were held. This is why just having people vote is a success. Comparing the poll to elections in Western democracies is not appropriate. “Our enemy’” he said, “are the people of 9/11, the people who attacked the United States, the people who attacked London”.
Abdullah, who got 30 per cent so far, insists on the government’s credibility problem. “I think a government whose record is very low, with corruption”, one that is “called a narco state” with the “rule of law, non existent,” has got serious problems, he said.
A new vote could not take before next year anyway because the ECC still has to deal with more than 2,000 written complaints about voting irregularities.
Peter Manikas, regional director of the independent National Democratic Institute, said that whilst the current problem might be solved by a deal between the major presidential candidates, the real question is how to rebuild the credibility of the electoral process, something particularly relevant now since parliamentary elections are scheduled for next year and they too might experience a serious credibility gap.
In the meantime Western donors are expected to meet in an international conference on Afghanistan before the end of the year. The election issue should be resolved by then.
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