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Mounting fraud allegations in Aug. 20 vote may force a runoff
Published on Thursday, Sep 17, 2009
Associated Press
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN: Afghan officials issued full preliminary results Wednesday showing President Hamid Karzai got 54.6 percent of the vote in last month's election, a result that could be annulled by mounting fraud allegations.
European Union election monitors say fraud is indicated in more than a quarter of the 5.6 million votes counted.
In Washington, meanwhile, President Barack Obama said there will be no quick decision on whether to send more U.S. troops into the widening war in Afghanistan, saying, ''My determination is to get this right.''
The president's comments came one day after Adm. Mike Mullen, his top military adviser as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, endorsed an increase in U.S. forces as probably necessary to battle a deepening insurgency.
The election added to the chaos. The Aug. 20 vote was so tainted by reports of ballot-box stuffing and questionable tallies that many expect final results to vary widely from the preliminary count after fraudulent ballots are thrown out.
If enough votes are thrown out for Karzai to drop below 50 percent, it will force him into a two-man runoff with top challenger Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who has 27.7 percent of the vote. The preliminary count gave Karzai 3.1 million votes to Abdullah's 1.6 million.
Recounts and investigations are likely to take weeks, pushing the date for any runoff well past the original plan for the first week of October. Snow starts blocking villages and roads in the mountainous country in November, so a long delay could make a second round logistically unfeasible until the spring.
The wait for a runoff could leave Afghanistan with a power vacuum at a time when Taliban attacks are increasing, and undermine support abroad for a war backing an apparently corrupt administration. Certified results originally were to have been released this week, with any runoff occurring two weeks later.
A spokesman said Abdullah would not comment on the release of the full results but would speak with reporters today.
Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai's campaign, said the president is ''clearly leading in the elections and we have bypassed the 50 percent benchmark that is required for someone to win the first round. We hope that when the certified results are announced, we will win the election in the first round.''
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly stressed that the results were preliminary.
''They're not final, and we're still waiting for the certified results,'' he said. ''The certified results will only come after the independent electoral commission and the electoral complaints commission has carried out their investigations thoroughly, and done all the required audits and recounts.''
A U.N.-backed complaints commission is examining thousands of potentially fraudulent ballots. The commission, which is the final arbiter of the vote results, has ordered a massive audit and recount of about 10 percent of voting stations. The group has already invalidated ballots from 83 polling stations because of fraud allegations, all in areas with high support for Karzai.
Get the full article here.
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