The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul

One in three votes cast for President Karzai in Afghanistan’s presidential elections were faked, with the official body overseeing the ballot condoning the massive fraud, EU election observers said today.

Around 1.1 million votes in favour of Mr Karzai met Afghanistan’s electoral fraud criteria, as well as 300,000 cast for Abdullah Abdullah, Mr Karzai’s main rival. A futher 100,000 suspect votes were cast for other candidates.

The EU team accused Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission of ignoring its own rules on identifying and eliminating suspect votes, and thus of sanctioning the fraud.

If the suspect votes had been excluded, Mr Karzai’s total share of the vote would fall to 47 per cent and a second round run off in the presidential election would be triggered, the observers found. (Read more)