Afghan election count halted for fraud accusations

10/11/2004 10:22:00 PM GMT

Afghan presidential election count has been halted till a United Nations panel finishes its investigation into candidates' accusations of vote fraud, a spokesman for the Joint Electoral Management Body said on Monday.

“We have asked the UN to recommend a panel of impartial experts to investigate the protests,'' spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said by telephone from the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Votes count is halted till Thursday.

The UN panel will include an unidentified former Canadian diplomat and a Swedish elections expert.

“There should be an investigation and the complaints need to be taken seriously but there is no reason to annul the results,'' said Alexander Nitzsche, spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Election Support team, in an interview from Kabul.

Negotiations are underway between election authority and candidates discussing reopening some polling stations and allowing Yunus Qanooni, interim President Hamid Karzai's main rival, to cast his own ballot after he boycotted the election on Oct. 9. Qanooni said he will accept the result of the elections after the UN investigation into candidates' fraud accusations.

10 Million Afghans participated in the country’s historic elections, but the poll ended in confusion when 15 candidates opposing Karzai, announced they boycott the election, saying that some voters may have cast ballots twice. The charges mainly focus on faulty ink marking voters' thumbs that was found to be easily washed or wiped out.

However, some of them said they’re willing to drop the boycott calls and leave the Joint Election Management Body (JEMB) probe into their complaints, saying they will accept its decision.

One top official, J. Ray Kennedy, told reporters that the count would be suspended until the JEMB decide how to handle the complaints.

"We are hoping all this will be in place by the end of the day tomorrow (Tuesday)," he said.

Karzai and U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad were trying to persuade Karzai's opponents to drop their boycott calls, Western diplomats and candidates said.

"Qanuni and Mohaqiq have shown willingness to drop the boycott demand after meetings with Khalilzad," said one candidate.

"Khalilzad urged them to do so in return for accommodating them somehow in the future government."

Afghan election’s legitimacy doubted

An independent eyewitness account shows that the washable ink controversy is not only limited in Kabul but to areas well beyond the capital.

“The problem is a potentially serious one for the legitimacy of the Afghan election as it allows voters with more than a single voter registration card to vote more than once. There have been widespread reports of Afghans who were able to secure more than one registration card,” according to the report.

Peter Bergen of the Johns Hopkins University, who also acts as CNN’s expert on terrorism, says: “Visits to polling stations in Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan and Loghar province, south of Kabul, indicate that the problems with the ink used to mark voters’ fingers in Saturday’s Afghan presidential election extend beyond the capital. At the Kolangar polling centre in Loghar election supervisor, Said Narullah, said ‘This ink can be easily removed.’ He demonstrated this by inking a reporter’s thumb and wiping off the ink in a couple of seconds. Similar problems with the ink were also found in Gardez, the provincial capital of Paktia. Dr Mohammed Nazar Mohammed Ahmadzai, a paediatrician who had just voted, complained that it was easy to wipe off the ink, a complaint endorsed by several others at the polling centre.”