Election staff dismissed in fraud probe
Election authorities today said they have dismissed about 50 employees for suspected fraud in last month’s legislative polls, while human rights advocates warned that about half of the winning candidates are suspected to have links to armed groups.
The developments cast doubt on the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s final formal step toward democracy. The latest fighting, meanwhile, in a reinvigorated insurgency left eight militants dead and two British planes damaged.
Some 680 ballot boxes, about 3% of votes, have been taken out of the counting process because of suspicions that they were stuffed, said Richard Atwood, chief of operations for the joint UN-Afghan election commission.
But he ruled out a recount. “The fraud that has occurred does not affect the integrity of the election.
“The fraud is not systematic or widespread across the country,” Atwood told reporters in Kabul. Election organisers have “done all we can to ensure this fraud is caught”.
He said approximately 50 people had been dismissed for suspected cheating, but did not elaborate.
Atwood said investigations into fraud had slowed the ballot counting. Almost a month after the September 18 vote, provisional results have only been published in 20 of the 34 provinces.
Accusations of irregularities have sparked demonstrations. Hundreds rallied in various towns today, including in southern Kandahar city where protesters threw stones at an election office.
“These elections no longer have any meaning. So many bribes have been given,” said Bashir Bezhen, an official with the state Ariana airlines who stood as an independent candidate in Kabul, but lost. “The counters were shameless in their work. They were like businessmen, making deals with whoever had money. There should be a re-count.”
Among the provisional winners is Yunus Qanooni, a candidate in Kabul who is billed as President Hamid Karzai’s main rival.
Also listed as a winner is Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, another Kabul candidate and a powerful militia leader named by New York-based Human Rights Watch for alleged war crimes. Other winning candidates accused of abuses by the group are Mullah Taj Mohammed in Kabul and Mohammed Ali Javeed in northern Balkh province.
“Around half of the winners have links to armed groups,” said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, the deputy chairman of the state-sponsored Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. ”Some are notorious warlords.”
Electoral law barred anyone with links to armed groups from competing but with nearly 2,800 candidates, activists say many of the warlords involved in the bloodshed of the past quarter-century have slipped through a UN-backed review they call woefully inadequate.
At least two former members of the Taliban have been elected. One is Abdul Salaam Rocketi, a front-line general who spent eight months in US detention and now actively encourages other Taliban members to reconcile with the government.
Another is Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, who was the governor of Bamiyan province in 2001 when the Taliban blew up two giant 1,500-year-old Buddha statues there, deeming them an affront to Islam.
The latest fighting with holdouts from the former regime erupted in Spin Boldak district, near the border with Pakistan, leaving eight suspected rebels dead, said Gen Mohammed Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Defence Ministry.
The damaged British warplanes were parked on the tarmac at the main US-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan when a rocket attack showered them with shrapnel, but wounded no one, said US military spokeswoman Sgt Marina Evans.
