Afghanistan’s presidential candidates question credibility of of last week’s election
KABUL — A growing number of Afghanistan’s presidential candidates are beginning to question the credibility of last week’s election, signaling the potential for deeper political turmoil as the first set of results are to be released Tuesday.
Staff from the campaigns of lawmaker Ramazan Bashardost and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani, expected to place third and fourth, respectively, said Monday that they believed the fraud was so widespread that the entire election may lack legitimacy. Many other minor presidential candidates said they agreed, and most accused supporters of Mr. Karzai — the frontrunner going into the vote — of engaging in the largest amount of fraud.
“We will not accept the results because the process was not free and fair,” said Mirwais Yasini, who is among the nearly three dozen candidates expected to garner less than 1 % or 2 % of the vote. Mr. Karzai “has slaughtered democracy in this country. No one will believe in it anymore.”
One of the problems is the paucity of information so far released by election officials, a fact that Afghan and U.S. officials have said is creating a fertile environment for speculation and rumors. No turnout figures have been released, and the first results are said to be coming Tuesday. But how much of the tally will be released is unclear: some election officials say it could be as little as 15 % or 20 %; others say it could be more than 40 %.
Less than a day after polls closed Thursday, the campaigns of two top contenders — President Hamid Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah — each declared victory, and accused the other of trying to steal the election by stuffing ballot boxes and intimidating voters.
The growing acrimony between the Karzai and Abdullah camps has threatened to subvert a vote that is seen by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama and its European allies as a key step toward stabilizing Afghanistan and overcoming the Taliban. The entry of lesser candidates into the fray is bound to heighten tensions, and could taint the eventual victor, said election observers and diplomats.
There appeared to be some strategy behind the fraud allegations against Mr. Karzai. Some seven minor candidates are in talks with the Abdullah campaign about endorsing the doctor in a possible second round, said members of Dr. Abdullah campaign’s staff, refusing to name the candidates. Dr. Abdullah acknowledged Sunday that he had met with a number of minor candidates but declined to give details.
A runoff between the two top vote getters will take place if no candidate garners more than 50 % of the vote.
As for Mr. Ghani, one of his campaign staffers said his allegations of fraud were made in good faith, but were strategic, too: if enough Karzai or Abdullah votes are disqualified, Mr. Ghani could end up making in through to a second-round runoff between the top two contenders, the staffer said.
Some presidential contenders vowed to take to the streets in the coming weeks, although many have such small followings that protests would be unlikely to cause any serious disturbances. “We are planning to stage wide-scale protests all over the country to demonstrate our disagreement,” said another minor candidate, Sarwar Ahmadzai.
While President Karzai’s team has been the main target of fraud accusations from the other candidates, Dr. Abdullah has also come in for criticism. Mr. Ghani’s campaign made public Monday a list of complaints they filed with the Electoral Complaints Commission, the body tasked with adjudicating disputes related to the elections. In one, the Ghani team alleges that gunmen associated with Dr. Abdullah forced people to vote in the northern province of Balkh. The provincial governor is a former warlord who openly backed Dr. Abdullah.
Afghan and international monitors said over the weekend that the election was marred by fraud, especially in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where Mr. Karzai’s support is strongest. Dr. Abdullah’s supporters, too, have been accused by monitors of trying to steal votes, although not on as large a scale.
“The insinuations of fraud will hurt the credibility of whoever is elected president,” said Prakhar Sharma, senior researcher at the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul. “If Karzai wins, however, he is a great deal-maker and he might be able to cut deals with some of the disillusioned candidates.”
The top United Nations official in the country said the Electoral Complaints Commission should be given time to complete an investigation. “I do appeal to the candidates and to the campaigns and also to the voters to demonstrate the patience and the calm that is required for the ECC to carry out its work,” said the U.N. official, Kai Eide.
