Evidence of Rampant Fraud in Afghan Vote Sowing Unrest
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Related subjects: Afghanistan, Asia / Pacific, Diplomacy & Politics, Open Government, Rights & Freedoms, Security & Surveillance, The Vote, U.S. news, U.S. Politics Comments Off
Since the day of the Afghan presidential election, there has been heated rhetoric on both sides, complete with accusations of massive vote-rigging, hostile acts, intimidation and other attempts to distort the voting process. By all accounts, it is amazing that the Afghan vote went ahead in a climate of outright terror and intimidation, owing to the Taliban-led insurgency and brutal attacks on civilians, including women and young girls.
But the vote was initially heralded as largely clean and a great success. While turnout was low, probably owing to both the dangerous conditions of the insurgency and to poor infrastructure and organization, observers did not initially report widespread irregularities, until reports began pouring in from across the country.
Opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah, the main rival to Pres. Hamid Karzai —who has governed since taking over from the invading forces in 2001, as chairman of the Transitional Administration— says the vote was rigged to favor Karzai, who became interim president in 2002 and was elected to his first full term in 2004. Mr. Abdullah alleges a wide range of tactics used to falsify the election results, including flagrant ballot-box stuffing.
Now, the BBC is reporting that one tribal area says it has evidence of over 30,000 votes falsified for Karzai in just one district. The allegations come from the Bareez tribe, in and around Kandahar, where the provincial council leader is Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the sitting president for whom the allegedly fraudulent votes were cast. The president’s brother says the fraud claims are “baseless”.
But nationally, the Electoral Complaints Commission is looking into more than 2,000 independent allegations of significant electoral fraud. There are numerous allegations that voters were not even permitted to cast ballots, that ballots for whole districts were simply filled and compiled in advance by election officials.
According to the BBC’s reporting:
The Bareez tribal leader, Haji Mohammed Bareez, told the BBC that the ballot boxes from one district were “stuffed” with fraudulent votes in favour of Mr Karzai, according to Daud Qarizadah, of the BBC’s Persian television service.
The tribe believes it has been deprived of its votes and wants a full investigation by the complaints commission, which has the power to throw them out if they are proved invalid.
Mr. Bareez went as far as to say that “No ballot box was brought here. They themselves filled the boxes with ballot papers.” If his claims can be substantiated, or even if the allegation gains momentum, the legitimacy of the entire process could be called into question. Some observers have called on Ahmed Wali Karzai to recuse himself from all actions looking into the legitimacy of the count in Kandahar, though he is taking the lead in rejecting the fraud claims and defending the transparency of his brother’s government.
There is some speculation about whether the government has manipulated the free flow of information coming out of Afghanistan. On election day, there were reports the government had sought to stop any reporting of violence related to the polling. While some believe such a measure might have been necessary to prevent turnout from being manipulated by Taliban actions, it is also thought to have provided an opportunity to engage in activities that might otherwise have been unfeasible.
With the allegations of vote-rigging gaining traction, there are calls for an investigation, and US officials have been put in the position of having to judge whether or not they believe their ally, Pres. Karzai, can be trusted and if not, where his biases lie. Karzai’s relations with the US had been strained during the campaign, as he sought to distance himself from military actions that killed civilians, and the Obama administration has admonished Karzai for doing too little to fight a culture of rampant corruption in his government.
Coalition forces worry that questions of electoral legitimacy could further weaken the Kabul government, whose reach does not truly extend to all Afghan territory. Such destabilization of the government could deepen American involvement in the insurgency and strain US military and diplomatic resources. The pressure is on to find out who won how many votes and produce a transparent, legitimate vote-count, by mid-September.
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