Europe's doubts on President Karzai’s election victory
Kabul (AsiaNews) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai today reaffirmed his "firm belief in the fairness of the presidential elections," held August 20 that saw him win with 54.6% (3.1 million out of 5.7 million valid votes). He denies European Union doubts that more than a third of the 1.5 million votes were fraudulent; 1.1 million for Karzai and 300 thousand for the challenger Abdullah Abdullah.
The firm stance of Karzai, who also confirmed "the correctness of the Afghan people and government," thus belies the position of Philippe Morillon, head of EU observers, who states that "any declaration of victory would be premature and not credible”. Morillon added that the fraud was committed by "unscrupulous and overzealous supporters ... of both parties”. If these votes were nullified, Karzai would have less than 50% of preferences and would need to go to the ballot.
Karzai's victory is not official yet, because an election monitoring body has asked to recount the votes of about 10% of the sections after finding "clear and convincing evidence of fraud." But his closest challenger Abdullah has remained at 27.7% of the vote, so no one expects different results.
Ali Najafi, a member of the Afghan Election Commission, spoke of EU "interference", before the electoral process had been concluded, and added to ignore the data bases that assertion.
The question of fraud, however, could delay the official declaration by weeks and even give rise to a situation of grave uncertainty. Which creates problems even for U.S. President Barack Obama, after Admiral Mike Mullen, chief of American forces, said he needed more soldier, a request that goes against public opinion in the U.S.. Moreover Obama would have difficulty in giving support to a government suspected of fraud.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission yesterday announced the official figure of voters: 5,918,741, representing 38.7% of the electorate. The low percentage, confirms the initial fears of a poor turnout due to the violent Taliban anti-vote campaign, but before that, the gradual distrust of citizens in the possibility of an abrupt change in society.
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