Ink row leaves stain on Afghan election
Afghanistan’s historic moment turned sour as all 15 challengers to interim Afghan President Hamid Karzai withdrew in the middle of voting in the nation’s first direct presidential election today.
They accused the government and the United Nations of fraud and incompetence which allowed people to cast more than one ballot.
After all the fears of a Taliban attack, it was bad ink – not bombs and bullets – that threatened to undo three years of careful progress toward democracy.
The opposition candidates claimed the ink used to mark people’s thumbs rubbed off too easily, allowing for mass deception.
Electoral officials rejected their demand that voting be stopped at midday, saying it would rob millions of their first chance to directly decide their leader, and that the joint UN-Afghan panel overseeing the election would rule later on the vote’s legitimacy.
But the controversy nonetheless cast a pall over what had been a joyous day in Afghanistan.
Millions of ethnically diverse Afghan voters crammed polling stations for an election aimed at bringing peace and prosperity to a country nearly ruined by more than two decades of war.
Men and women voted at separate booths in keeping with this nation’s conservative Islamic leanings.
Karzai – who is widely favoured to win – told a news conference that the fate of the election was in the hands of the electoral panel, but added that in his view “the election was free and fair … it is very legitimate.”
“Who is more important, these 15 candidates, or the millions of people who turned out today to vote?” Karzai said. “Both myself and all these 15 candidates should respect our people – because in the dust and snow and rain, they waited for hours and hours to vote.”
Taliban rebels got into a skirmish with US troops that left at least 25 insurgents dead, and managed to kill three Afghan policemen accompanying ballots back to a counting centre after the vote.
Eight more police and two civilians died when their vehicles ran over mines. But the rebels didn’t muster anything approaching the massive attack they had threatened to derail the election.
The boycott was a blow to the international community, which spent just under £120 million staging the vote. At least 12 election workers, and dozens of Afghan security forces, died in the past few months as the nation geared up for the vote.
The opposition candidates met at the house of Uzbek candidate Abdul Satar Sirat and signed a petition saying they would not recognise the vote results.
Sirat, an ex-aide to Afghanistan’s last king and a minor candidate expected to poll in the low single-digits, said all 15 candidates opposing Karzai agreed to the boycott.
“Today’s election is not a legitimate election. It should be stopped and we don’t recognise the results,” Sirat said. “This vote is a fraud and any government formed from it is illegitimate.”
Abdul Latif Padran, an Islamic poet who is another minor candidate, added: “Today was a very black day. Today was the occupation of Afghanistan by America through elections.”
Election officials acknowledged that workers at some voting stations mistakenly swapped the permanent ink meant to mark thumbs with normal ink meant for ballots, but insisted the problem was caught quickly.
“Halting the vote at this stage is unjustified and would deny these people their right to vote,” said Ray Kennedy, vice chairman of the joint U.N.-Afghan electoral panel, of the opposition demands. “There have been some technical problems but overall it has been safe and orderly.”
Kennedy said it could take time for the electoral body to reach a decision on the vote’s legitimacy.
The European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe sent observer missions as well.
Even if the vote is ultimately validated, Karzai’s ability to unite this nation, fight rampant warlordism and crush a lingering Taliban insurgency in the nation of 25 million might be fatally compromised if his opponents refuse to accept the results and insist that his rule is illegitimate.
The election was supposed to offer a stark contrast to Afghanistan’s many forms of imposed rule in the past 30 years – monarchy, Soviet occupation, warlord fiefdoms and the repressive Taliban theocracy ousted by the US-led invasion following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
About 10.5 million registration cards were handed out for the election, a staggering number that UN and Afghan officials say was inflated by widespread double registration. Organisers had argued that the indelible ink would prevent people from voting twice.
