Afghan presidential election in crisis as candidate alleges 'blatant fraud'

[Thoryalai Zazai]

It is a shameful affair when Afghans on this forum start calling the candidate who secured 45% of the Afghan vote as a "Bitch"

One Afghan did, hence singular rather than the plural "Afghans"

...people right now are angry at Dr Abdullah and his closest colleagues, especially for employing language deemed enflammatory. Even Ahmed Zia Massoud (the late Ahmed Shah Massoud's brother) has been critical of the Presidential candidate's reckless behaviour.

Dr Abdullah however is perfectly within his rights to call out foul play when he sees it, although there are better ways to do it. Elections in Afghanistan aren't about the Presidency or the individuals involved in it, but rather for the benefit and improvement of Afghan lives. We actually like to encourage free speech among our people as the real pillars of the Mujahed nation under God's natural sovereignty. Some of the politicians may not know it yet, but we'll see to it that they realize that they're not the rulers but the servants of the people, including the security forces. We know we're doing well because the former Communists in particular complain that the government's not doing anything, but rather ordinary Afghans who are building the country. What they can't seem to fathom is that it's not the job of a government to do any more than open opportunities for the people to carry the country forward through entrepeneurs, hard workers, advocacy groups, journalists, scientists, etc...

 

[nangyale]

The "Bitch" bites back.
Dr abdullah's team has released recordings of Afghan election officials discussing corruption in the latest elections. It seems that his allegation of "industrial scale corruption" is true after all.

Afghan election crisis: 'stuffed sheep' recordings suggest large-scale fraud
Audio released by Abdullah Abdullah's campaign allegedly capture senior election official conspiring with team of rival candidate Ashraf Ghani

• Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul
• The Guardian

Sheep at a Kabul livestock market. In the recordings, one man says: 'Take the sheep into the mountain and bring them back stuffed', referring to illegally filled ballot boxes. Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP
Afghanistan's leadership crisis has deepened after one presidential candidate released audio recordings that he said captured a senior election official conspiring to commit large-scale fraud using the code word "stuffed sheep" to discuss illegally filled ballot boxes.

In 15 minutes of sometimes slightly surreal conversation, two men urge an official to fire election staff with suspect loyalties and replace them with known supporters, ramp up plans for vote buying and ballot stuffing, and close down polling stations in areas thought to be unsympathetic.

"Take the sheep into the mountain and bring them back stuffed," one man says, before apparently lamenting the growing cost of buying votes. "The price of goats and sheep has gone up these days," he says ruefully.

A campaign manager for former mujahideen doctor Abdullah Abdullah on Sunday said one speaker in that conversation was a close aide of the country's chief electoral officer, Ziaulhaq Amarkhil, although he refused to reveal the source of the recordings or offer any verification of the speakers' identity.

He claimed that the other man was from the campaign team of Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank technocrat and author of the book Fixing Failed States. Ghani appears to have a majority of votes in the 14 June run-off against Abdullah but is accused by his rival of cheating.

A two-stage vote that was initially hailed as a triumph for the Afghan people and their fledging democracy, after Taliban threats failed to deter millions from turning out to cast their ballots, has since descended into a tense standoff with no clear path to a resolution.

Abdullah announced last week that he was withdrawing from the election process, accusing incumbent Hamid Karzai and Amarkhil of helping Ghani rig the vote, with assistance from government and election officials around the country.

He called for United Nations mediation, an offer unexpectedly endorsed by Karzai himself, even though the president had spent years squeezing all traces of foreign influence out of the electoral system. The UN itself has been more circumspect.

"This is a process which we respect as an Afghan-led process, Afghan-managed process and we would not want to take steps which would be seen as interfering or substituting the UN for Afghan leadership," deputy UN envoy Nicholas Haysom told journalists on Saturday.

"The task ahead of us is to have the candidates re-engage fully in the electoral process … There is no other way of electing a legitimate leader."

The UN has not been given a copy of the phone conversations but has urged Abdullah's team to submit the recording to officials monitoring fraud, spokesman Ari Gaitanis said.

Amarkhil himself was allegedly captured in some of the conversations played to journalists, asking a contact to "bring the sheep, stuffed properly", but also complaining peevishly about how little attention Ghani was giving him.

Abdullah's team had already complained to media about Amarkhil, and his photograph was burned at anti-fraud demonstrations called by Abdullah's supporters at the weekend.

Amarkhil, a former UN employee, denied that he had meddled in the election or that the audio recordings captured his conversations. "I would never talk like that," he told the Wall Street Journal. Spokesmen for Ghani and the election commission, in interviews broadcast on Afghan TV, questioned both the authenticity of the recordings and how they had been obtained.

 

[nangyale]

One Afghan did, hence singular rather than the plural "Afghans"

Yes one person did but you picked that one line from his post and added to his.
If anything you should have rebuffed him for saying that.

Questions mount as Afghan 'vote fraud' tapes emerge
By Karen Allen BBC News, Afghanistan

A number of places have seen demonstrations over alleged electoral fraud

Potentially explosive audio tapes released in Afghanistan allegedly reveal a senior election official directing that ballot boxes be stuffed in the crucial presidential run-off.

The recordings, which cannot be independently verified, are believed to have come from the security services.

They have been placed in the public domain by the Abdullah Abdullah camp who refuse to disclose their source.

Fraud allegations have been made by Dr Abdullah and by his rival Ashraf Ghani.

But the audio tapes appear to reveal a partisan senior election official working in Dr Ghani's interest.

However the former world bank executive's team say secret recordings without a court order are illegal and must be investigated.

'Awkward' questions
The audio tapes - which the BBC has heard - appear to capture conversations between a senior election official, Zia Ul-Haq Amarkhail, and colleagues in at least four other provinces.

In an apparent reference to ballot box stuffing, the tapes appear to show Mr Amarkhail urging a colleague to "bring the sheep stuffed and not empty". The reference to sheep and goats - ballot boxes and people or votes - is made several times during the recorded exchanges.

Preliminary results are expected in early July, once vote counting is completed

In a separate conversation, the senior official also apparently deals with concerns from a colleague in one of the north-western provinces, who warns that "others make the majority in our office".

Mr Amarkhail apparently responds to him with the words "why don't you get rid of them, take a stick and kick them all out" and goes on to suggest new officials are recruited from ethnic groups, assumed to back Ashraf Ghani.

Many awkward questions still surround the release of tapes, copies of which have now been handed to the presidency and the Independent Election Commission (IEC).

The UN, which is being urged by Mr Abdullah to step in and help arbitrate disputes, has also been made aware of their existence.

In a statement, the UN said the Afghan election authorities should consider the "validity, weight and implications" of the tapes and "take action in line with the principles of accountability".

It wants the Afghans to sort out their own problems but do so in a "transparent" manner.

'Protecting the vote'
For the past week the IEC has been under pressure to suspend Mr Amarkhail pending an investigation.

An altercation between him and a senior police official on election day, after the police chief had become suspicious of his movements, was aired on Afghan TV.

Since then the cries for him to be relieved of his duties have grown louder, but so far the election body has resisted taking any action.

Mr Amarkhail has not responded to BBC requests for an interview. The election authorities simply stated that his "privacy" was protected by the constitution when asked for a comment about the tapes.

Many questions arise from these audio recordings. How were they obtained, why are they being released now and will they be admissible as "evidence" of alleged fraud?

The Abdullah camp has tossed this explosive material into the public domain but the presidential hopeful himself has been away from the media spotlight - in sharp contrast to his public appearances earlier this week.

He has suspended his co-operation with the election authorities, a position the UN has described as "regrettable" and says he will not recognise any result they release.

More demonstrators from Mr Abdullah's camp have been out on the streets of Kabul on Sunday.

Many say they are there to "protect their vote" from fraud.

Both sides have lodged complaints about the conduct of these elections and for Abdullah Abdullah, who felt he was robbed of the presidency back in 2009, there is a sense that history is repeating itself.

Yet both teams are being reminded by the UN's second most senior envoy here, Nicholas Haysom, that there "will be a winner and there will be a loser" in the landmark presidential election.

And, as the slow task of counting and verifying votes continues for some time to come, they are quietly being urged to show restraint.

 

[Thoryalai Zazai]

Fraud allegations have been made by Dr Abdullah and by his rival Ashraf Ghani.

...we'll just have to wait and see what the UN envoys make out of all the "evidence" at hand. May the candidate with the least number of fraudulent votes win!

 

[Afghan-India]

Pakistanis and Indians with no understanding on politics in Afghanistan should keep their mouth quite.

 

[nangyale]

...we'll just have to wait and see what the UN envoys make out of all the "evidence" at hand. May the candidate with the least number of fraudulent votes win!

Are you saying that both the candidates were involved in fraud?

 

[Thoryalai Zazai]

Are you saying that both the candidates were involved in fraud?

I'm not saying it, but both candidates are alleging this, according to the report you've presented here:

Fraud allegations have been made by Dr Abdullah and by his rival Ashraf Ghani

 

[nangyale]

Afghan election officer quits, opens way for Abdullah to return to race

By By Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi 20 hours ago


The head of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) secretariat, Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhil …
By Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who pulled out of the race alleging vote-rigging, indicated he might return after a senior election official resigned on Monday.

Abdullah, one of two candidates through to a second-round vote on June 14, had accused Independent Election Commission (IEC) Secretariat head Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhil of fraud during the ballot count.

Amarkhil denied that but resigned a day after Abdullah's party aired what it said were intercepted phone conversations in which he ordered officials to stuff ballot boxes.

"Now that the announcement was made ... the door is open for us to get to talk to the commission about conditions and circumstances which will help the process," Abdullah said.

He has previously said certain conditions must be discussed before he would return to the election, including potentially repeating the vote in some areas.



Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah speaks during a news conference in Kabul June 23, 20 …

His withdrawal last week threatened to unleash an ethnic power struggle. Abdullah, a former anti-Taliban fighter, is of mixed heritage but his support base is with the Tajik community, while his election rival, ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani, is an ethnic Pashtun.

At least one deadly gun battle erupted between rival supporters last week. Dozens of Abdullah's supporters protested for a third day outside the house of IEC chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani on Monday.

Nuristani said he had not asked the official to resign and Amarkhil himself said the audio recording was a fake and he was quitting "for the sake of confidence building".

"That was a fake and made-up tape to confuse public opinion," Amarkhil told reporters. "I believe in elections and I believe in justice and I believe in democracy."

FINGERS CUT



The head of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) secretariat, Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhil …

The election comes at a delicate time for Afghanistan as foreign troops prepare to quit by the end of the year, leaving behind a strong Taliban insurgency and an economic crisis.

Several Afghanis told Reuters the Taliban had cut off their fingers as punishment for voting.

"I regret voting in such a fraudulent process," said one villager at a hospital in the western Herat province, whose finger was cut off. He asked for his name to be withheld, fearing further reprisals.

"Tens of people died and hundreds more were wounded when they voted on election day. Nobody respected their sacrifices."

The Taliban, who warned Afghans to stay away from the polls, carried out hundreds of attacks on election day, killing at least 53 civilians, almost half of whom were children.


Afghan demonstrators burn their election ID cards during a protest in support of presidential candid …
Although the Islamist group denied cutting off fingers, Reuters found near a dozen other patients at the hospital who had suffered the same injury and blamed the Taliban.

"We challenged the Taliban by casting our votes. We left our village and family but we found that nobody respects our sacrifices," said another villager, requesting anonymity.

"We voted for a good government and a developed Afghanistan but the result is an election full of fraud."

The villagers said they could not return to their homes because they feared further attacks by the Taliban. Provincial officials have said they are looking at how they can help them find alternative places to live.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Monday, seven soldiers were killed in the southern Zabul province when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, the district governor said.

President Hamid Karzai, who was constitutionally unable to run for office again, has refused to sign an agreement with Washington to keep U.S. forces in the country beyond this year.

Both presidential candidates have endorsed the agreement but time is running out for the new government to sign the deal.

On Monday, two foreign servicemen were wounded when they were shot at in Paktia province, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

(Additional reporting by Jalil Rezayee; Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

 

[Shabaz Sharif]

Afghanistan need parliment based system.

 

[Thoryalai Zazai]

Afghanistan need parliment based system.

A lot of Afghans have supported this motion, including Dr Abdullah's camp who've expressed there preferences for a Parliamentary based system. I however remain to be convinced, for I remain supportive of the current system with a strong President. To make this work however, Civil Society will need to continue to step up to empower the constitution as the main political sovereign. The current system in my view motivates greater political participation from the public, rather than surrendering that responsibility to a bunch of Politicians in the Senate.

 

[nangyale]

Afghan election: Palpable rage in Abdullah's camp
By Harun Najafizada BBC Persian, Kabul

Protesters tore down a picture of Hamid Karzai and put up one of Abdullah Abdullah

People at the venue in Kabul where Abdullah Abdullah spoke to his supporters were angry. A crowd tore down a poster of outgoing President Hamid Karzai chanting: "Death to Karzai. Long Live Abdullah!"

The rage was palpable - a chorus of aggression and hatred in the Afghan capital's historic Jirga tent ensured that the image of Afghanistan's president for the last 13 years is no longer there.

They are appalled and shocked by the election results, and they believe that massive fraud has happened while President Karzai, the election commission and Mr Karzai's rival, Ashraf Ghani, stood by.

Abdullah Abdullah won the first round of the election, and for him to fall behind so severely in the run-off is too much for his supporters to believe.

So the Abdullah camp decided to take matters into their own hands, and he appears to have some backing.

Overnight and on Tuesday morning, several influential figures - governors, district leaders, mayors, warlords - have come out in his favour.

But Afghanistan is a divided country - Mr Ghani and Mr Abdullah both command a lot of support.

If you talk to people on the street, they are worried about food prices and their incomes; they are worried about violence, a possible civil war; and they are worried about the fact that democracy seems to be returning to its starting point after 13 years.

Mr Abdullah's supporters are angry at the election results and believe some votes were fraudulent

On Monday night, there were people on the streets of Kabul shouting against President Karzai and claiming that Abdullah Abdullah had won the election. But there were also supporters of Ashraf Ghani out celebrating.

Despite suggestions that Mr Abdullah was going to announce a parallel government, he made clear he wanted a unified country.

But analysts will be very worried. They know that what is being proposed could affect Afghanistan's stability, economy, and relations with the international community.

The army across the country is such a divided force that it is difficult to know how it might respond in the event of a split.

Deadlock
Everybody recognises this has the making of an electoral crisis.

US President Barack Obama called Mr Abdullah on Tuesday morning and asked him to refrain from announcing a parallel government.

Mr Abdullah said US Secretary of State John Kerry is coming to Kabul to find a solution.

For now and until then, Mr Abdullah has promised to refrain from announcing a parallel government.

Mr Abdullah said Mr Kerry could help to find out about the fraudulent votes alleged to have taken place in the election last month.

This has been met with approval by Mr Abdullah's supporters, and it is clear that they are now more optimistic about the future.

The current electoral deadlock that risks undermining the stability of the country will almost certainly not find an Afghan solution.

And just like in 2009 - at the time of the last presidential election, which was also marred by fraud claims - it is again up to Mr Kerry to find a way forward.

 

[nangyale]

Afghan vote audit begins but failure risks losing US support
Collapse of election process could bring an abrupt end to US financial and military support if one of two rival candidates steps away from deal

• Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul
• theguardian.com, Thursday 17 July 2014

John Kerry spent hours listening to the rivals' grievances before gently pushing them towards the ambitious agreement. Photograph: Rahmat Gul/AP

Afghanistan has staved off a slide into violence with an unprecedented deal to recount every single vote cast in the contested presidential election, but as the audit begins there are fears the process is still fragile and some big problems have only been kicked down the road.

The counting of 8.1m votes, according to the independent election commission, will take at least three weeks, as hundreds of auditors sift through papers cast for either Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank technocrat, or Abdullah Abdullah, a former mujahideen adviser.

They will work under the watchful eye of candidate agents, local election monitors and as a key guarantee of neutrality, European Union observers.

One of the candidates does not trust the election authorities organising the recount, the other does not trust the police and army securing it, and both are wary that fraud by the other side will be ignored while possible cheating by their own supporters is scrutinised.

Ghani was ahead by over 1m votes in preliminary results, but Abdullah says that 2m of his opponent's ballots are fraudulent.

"They may try to reopen the package, and if they do, it's over," a diplomat in Kabul warned. "Either they would walk together through the process or they stop it, then all options are open and they will lose US support."

The last-minute deal brokered by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, gives the eventual loser a plum position as a kind of chief executive for the government, and ultimately prime minister if a constitutional change can be pushed through. It creates in one swoop a new centre of power in a government until now dominated by an immensely powerful president.

The system shaped by Washington over a decade ago kept parliament intentionally weak because of worries about ethnic factionalism, and a feeble, corrupt judiciary offered no other check on presidential authority.

Relinquishing some of those sweeping presidential powers after a hard fought campaign will be painful, and the deal is only as binding as the political will that shaped it.

With Iraq disintegrating, both Afghans and those in Washington have a painful reminder of the risk of failure. The US has been unequivocal that a collapse of the election process would bring an abrupt end to financial and military support for a country that cannot yet pay its own bills.

And because the extent of the fraud is genuinely unknown, both rivals come to the audit table as potential losers, offering a large incentive to make that position as attractive as possible if the audit is thorough.

"They are mutually reinforcing, the technical and the unity government deals. Without both, you don't get a deal," the diplomat said. "They may withdraw once or twice, but they both have a stake."

An added incentive may be the tantalising promise of a historical legacy, as the leader who created a more stable system, one that can keep ethnic tensions in check, prevent a repeat of this year's slow-motion debacle, and avoid the need for US and UN help next time round.

"Its embarrassing that we could not resolve this ourselves," said one government official. Outgoing president Hamid Karzai who fought hard to banish any foreign influence on the vote, called the deal a "bitter pill" swallowed for the sake of his country. However, it was still welcomed by many of the ordinary voters who had started to wonder if their enthusiasm for democracy had been naïve. "With a 100% audit, people will believe in the election again," said another senior Afghan official. "Now they know that every vote does matter."

There was also relief that a looming crisis, with real potential for violence, had been averted. Abdullah's supporters were talking publicly about civil unrest, and behind the scenes already weighing up odds on a coup, the New York Times reported. Abdullah himself was vulnerable in the face of fury from his most powerful backers, whom he struggled to restrain.

"It was serious enough that it engaged the president of the United States and the secretary of state and that's not an everyday occurrence," the US ambassador, James Cunningham, said of the crisis.

"At the worst there was a real danger this process could get out of control, at best the talk that was going on and rumours that were circulating on both sides were highly undesirable and in and of themselves becoming corrosive to the prospects of reconciling the political discussion."

Kerry spent patient hours listening to the two sides lay out their grievances in fine detail, and gently pushing them again and again towards the unexpected and ambitious agreement.

There has never before been such a thorough audit of a national vote, and the scale of the undertaking will push Afghanistan close to unofficial international deadlines for selecting a new leader.

At the ambitious rate of checking 1,000 ballot boxes a day, it will still not be finished until mid-August, and that relies on a very speedy recruitment of observers by the European Union, which is taking an unusually prominent role to pre-empt accusations of American meddling.

A summit in China at the end of August, and a Nato meeting in the UK in early September should set the country's future direction at least for the next two years, and help seal critical funding for a government that cannot pay even half its own bills.

Neither can be moved, but talks between the two candidates about the details of their government are already under way. If they can keep them civil and productive, and if the audit is smooth and credible, diplomats and officials say they are hoping the new leader will be sworn into office around 23 August, with a team ready to start work almost straight away.