.Abdullah: Afghan vote "state-engineered" fraud
KABUL (AP) - The top challenger to President Hamid Karzai told The Associated Press on Thursday that the scale of cheating in Afghanistan's Aug. 20 election is only now becoming clear, and that he expects enough fraudulent Karzai votes to be thrown out to trigger a runoff.
Abdullah Abdullah, who trails in the vote count with 28 percent, also said he would not accept a position in a new Karzai government, an alternative some Western officials have floated as a way to ease the electoral crisis and avoid a potentially messy runoff.
"At this stage one has to focus on the credibility of the process and how to help the process survive," Abdullah said. "The process survives when the fraudulent results are taken out and ... the outcome is decided based on real results rather than fraudulent votes."
Asked if that meant no, Abdullah loudly spelled out his response: "N-O."
Abdullah's comments came as the country's U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission tossed out suspicious ballots for the first time. It voided results from 83 polling stations in three provinces where support for Karzai is strong.
The invalidated votes had been included in the most recent tally by the Karzai-appointed Independent Elections Commission, or IEC, which this week released figures showing Karzai with 54 percent of the vote with ballots from 92 percent of polling stations counted.
"Of course there were fears and concerns about the possibility of fraud or rigging," a somber Abdullah told AP in an interview at its Kabul office. "But ... when you investigate it, then you see that the whole thing was state-engineered and unfortunately in collaboration with the IEC, in most cases."
He predicted that once all the fraudulent ballots are excluded, Karzai's total will fall to less than 50 percent of the vote.
Abdullah said he will seek a runoff despite fears that a new election would expose voters to attacks from the Taliban, who waged a campaign of violence in the run-up to the Aug. 20 vote. Nearly 30 Afghan civilians and security forces were killed in election day violence.
"There is a war going on in this country and there are people fighting against the process, against this government, as well as the process as a whole," he said. "That will go on regardless."
Accepting fraudulent results, Abdullah said, would weaken Afghanistan's already shaky government and betray voters who risked their lives to go to the polls.
"The people took risks," he said. "It's important to restore the faith of the people in the process, so the people believe that it works."
If the fraud is allowed to stand, he said, "we will be stuck in this sort of circle and never be able to get off it."
MyWay
Abdullah Abdullah, who trails in the vote count with 28 percent, also said he would not accept a position in a new Karzai government, an alternative some Western officials have floated as a way to ease the electoral crisis and avoid a potentially messy runoff.
"At this stage one has to focus on the credibility of the process and how to help the process survive," Abdullah said. "The process survives when the fraudulent results are taken out and ... the outcome is decided based on real results rather than fraudulent votes."
Asked if that meant no, Abdullah loudly spelled out his response: "N-O."
Abdullah's comments came as the country's U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission tossed out suspicious ballots for the first time. It voided results from 83 polling stations in three provinces where support for Karzai is strong.
The invalidated votes had been included in the most recent tally by the Karzai-appointed Independent Elections Commission, or IEC, which this week released figures showing Karzai with 54 percent of the vote with ballots from 92 percent of polling stations counted.
"Of course there were fears and concerns about the possibility of fraud or rigging," a somber Abdullah told AP in an interview at its Kabul office. "But ... when you investigate it, then you see that the whole thing was state-engineered and unfortunately in collaboration with the IEC, in most cases."
He predicted that once all the fraudulent ballots are excluded, Karzai's total will fall to less than 50 percent of the vote.
Abdullah said he will seek a runoff despite fears that a new election would expose voters to attacks from the Taliban, who waged a campaign of violence in the run-up to the Aug. 20 vote. Nearly 30 Afghan civilians and security forces were killed in election day violence.
"There is a war going on in this country and there are people fighting against the process, against this government, as well as the process as a whole," he said. "That will go on regardless."
Accepting fraudulent results, Abdullah said, would weaken Afghanistan's already shaky government and betray voters who risked their lives to go to the polls.
"The people took risks," he said. "It's important to restore the faith of the people in the process, so the people believe that it works."
If the fraud is allowed to stand, he said, "we will be stuck in this sort of circle and never be able to get off it."
MyWay
posted by madtom at 6:54 PM
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