| Home > Central Asia >> Afghanistan | |
Fears Afghan runoff will be fixed
The Australian - October 22, 2009
Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent – The UN has announced it will replace more than half the top officials in Afghanistan's presidential polls because of suspected fraud as the country gears up for an election runoff many fear will be even less credible.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that 200 officials suspected of involvement in the disputed August elections would be replaced for the November 7 runoff between President Hamid Karzai and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Mr Ban said the UN had learned "quite a painful lesson" from the August poll.
"We realised that it was quite difficult for a young democracy to stand on its own, even with strong international assistance, particularly by the UN," he told the BBC. "We will try to replace all the officials who have been implicated in not following the guidelines or who have been complicit in fraudulent procedures."
Analysts and diplomats expressed concern at the two-week time frame for the runoff, saying it was too short to correct the security lapses that paved the way for the first round's skewed result.
Some observers called for an overhaul of staff within the Independent Election Commission, which was responsible for co-ordinating only the country's second democratic elections but stands accused of complicity in the vote-rigging and ballot-stuffing. Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies director Haroun Mir warned that if voter turnout fell below 20 per cent of the population – as some have predicted after Taliban threats, the coming winter and public disillusionment – the election would lack credibility.
Mr Mir said the same institutions would be involved despite questions over their integrity.
"If we don't solve all these issues, then we face all the same challenges again with the runoff," he told The Australian. "This is a very important process. Why rush it when we can put off the runoff for a few months, we have time to correct many of the mistakes made the first time?
"The fate of Afghanistan is in the hands of the next leader for five years, so delaying the process a few months is nothing."
Bruce Riedel, who led US President Barack Obama's strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan this year, said the runoff represented "the best of some bad options".
But he warned: "A second fiasco will be the end of this. There can't be a third round."
Mr Karzai announced the runoff late on Tuesday night after the UN-funded Electoral Complaints Commission ordered ballots from 210 of the 380 polling stations be discounted, cutting Mr Karzai's tally to 48.3 per cent. Dr Abdullah got 30.59 per cent of the vote, up from 28 per cent.
While the IEC said it had "some reservations" about the calculations, and agreed to certify Mr Karzai's final vote tally at 49.7 per cent, the result still forces a runoff by reducing his vote share to less than 50.1 per cent.
Mr Karzai's concession comes after diplomatic manoeuvring by the Obama administration, which dispatched senior US senator John Kerry to Kabul.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is understood to have made several calls to Mr Karzai after the US embassy in Kabul alerted the White House to rumours he was preparing to declare election victory.
The White House – which is debating a request to send 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan – delivered a pointed message to Kabul that no more soldiers would be deployed until a political resolution was reached.
Mr Obama yesterday welcomed the runoff, saying: "It is now vital that all elements of Afghan society continue to come together to advance democracy, peace and justice."
While some diplomats suggested efforts to mediate a unity government would intensify, an option Dr Abdullah has hinted he would be amenable to, Mr Karzai appeared to rule that out.
Dr Abdullah has welcomed the runoff even as he cautioned there was no guarantee the next round would be less subject to fraud.
The former foreign minister said: "We are completely ready for the second round."
He called on Afghan officials to ensure a "free, fair and credible election" with enough security to encourage people to vote. (Additional reporting: agencies)
See also:
 |