By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
ELECTION officials have scrapped fewer than 5 per cent of Afghanistan’s suspect votes, despite more than 2,600 reports of “state-sponsored” fraud, as new results published yesterday pushed president Hamid Karzai to a 17-point lead.
ELECTION officials have scrapped fewer than 5 per cent of Afghanistan’s suspect votes, despite more than 2,600 reports of “state-sponsored” fraud, as new results published yesterday pushed president Hamid Karzai to a 17-point lead.
The head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), appointed by Mr Karzai, said just 447 polling stations out of more than 18,000 nationwide had been ruled out because of irregularities. The Scotsman has learned as many as one in six polling centres have triggered fraud alerts, but so far only about 200,000 votes have been excluded out of more than four million.
The sheer scale and audacity of the cheating is threatening to make a mockery of the election, along with the international community’s $220 million (£134m) efforts to support it.
The IEC has the power to exclude votes if there is evidence of fraud, but its chairman, Aziz Ludin, who announced the results yesterday, is pressuring staff to ignore their own red flags – triggered if a candidate wins more than 98 per cent in any one location, or if more than 600 people vote in one booth – and publish everything.
If he gets his way most analysts predict Mr Karzai will win the election outright in the first round, with around 70 per cent.
His closest challenger, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, has accused the incumbent of “stealing in daylight”. Results from almost 75 per cent of the country’s polling stations released yesterday give Mr Karzai 48.6 per cent, with Dr Abdullah on 31.7.
Analysts say it would be politically difficult for the Electoral Complaints Commission, widely perceived as a foreign organisation, to intervene enough to alter the result.
The credibility gap is forcing Kabul’s foreign backers into a Catch 22 situation.
“Do they swallow whatever happens and support the winner? Or do they do whatever they need to do behind the scenes to force a second round and hope it’s more credible?” said a former US diplomat.
Mr Ludin said the results published so far were from “clean” polling stations, but the figures tell a different story. At Wali Mohammed Khan’s house in Torzai, Kandahar, Mr Karzai won 100 per cent of the 4,049 votes. Four of the eight polling stations collected exactly 500 votes.(Read original)
The sheer scale and audacity of the cheating is threatening to make a mockery of the election, along with the international community’s $220 million (£134m) efforts to support it.
The IEC has the power to exclude votes if there is evidence of fraud, but its chairman, Aziz Ludin, who announced the results yesterday, is pressuring staff to ignore their own red flags – triggered if a candidate wins more than 98 per cent in any one location, or if more than 600 people vote in one booth – and publish everything.
If he gets his way most analysts predict Mr Karzai will win the election outright in the first round, with around 70 per cent.
His closest challenger, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, has accused the incumbent of “stealing in daylight”. Results from almost 75 per cent of the country’s polling stations released yesterday give Mr Karzai 48.6 per cent, with Dr Abdullah on 31.7.
Analysts say it would be politically difficult for the Electoral Complaints Commission, widely perceived as a foreign organisation, to intervene enough to alter the result.
The credibility gap is forcing Kabul’s foreign backers into a Catch 22 situation.
“Do they swallow whatever happens and support the winner? Or do they do whatever they need to do behind the scenes to force a second round and hope it’s more credible?” said a former US diplomat.
Mr Ludin said the results published so far were from “clean” polling stations, but the figures tell a different story. At Wali Mohammed Khan’s house in Torzai, Kandahar, Mr Karzai won 100 per cent of the 4,049 votes. Four of the eight polling stations collected exactly 500 votes.(Read original)
