Sun, Oct 10, 2004 page1

• Boycott threat undercuts historic Afghan election

  • AP
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  Afghanistan's first direct presidential election was thrust into turmoil hours after it started yesterday when all 15 candidates challenging interim Afghan President Hamid Karzai said they would boycott the results, alleging fraud over the ink meant to ensure people voted only once.

  Electoral officials rejected the candidates' call to abandon the rest of the balloting, saying it would rob millions of voters of their chance to cast ballots and that they would rule later on the legitimacy of the election.

  Initial results from the election in any case are not expected until late today or early tomorrow, but anything approaching a full count could take as much as two weeks.

  "Halting the vote at this stage is unjustified and would deny these people their right to vote," said Ray Kennedy, the vice chairman of the joint UN-Afghan panel overseeing the election. "There have been some technical problems but overall it has been safe and orderly."

  The boycott cast a pall over what had been a joyous day in Afghanistan. Millions of Afghan voters braved threats of Taliban violence to cram polling stations throughout this ethnically diverse nation in an election aimed at bringing peace and prosperity to a country nearly ruined by more than two decades of war.

  Opposition candidates, meeting at the house of Uzbek candidate Abdul Satar Sirat, signed a petition saying they would not recognize the results of the vote, saying glitches with the ink used to mark voters' thumbs opened the way for widespread fraud.

  Election officials said 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.

  Sirat, an former aide to Afghanistan's last king and a minor candidate expected to poll in the low single digits, said all 15 candidates still in the race against Karzai agreed to the boycott.

  "Today's election is not a legitimate election. It should be stopped and we don't recognize the results," Sirat said. "This vote is a fraud."

  Kennedy said it could take time for the electoral body to reach a decision on the vote's legitimacy. UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva had said earlier that the problems were not as pervasive as the opposition claimed.

  "I don't think we can lose sight of the perspective," the UN spokesman said. "There are 23,000 polling stations in the country. We do not have indications it [the ink problem] was to a great extent."

  About 10.5 million registration cards were handed out ahead of the election, a staggering number that UN and Afghan officials say was inflated by widespread double registration.

  Human-rights groups say some people obtained four or five voter cards, thinking they would be able to use them to receive humanitarian aid. Vote organizers had argued that the indelible ink would prevent people from voting twice.

  Karzai, accompanied by heavily armed bodyguards, had earlier voted in a room at what was once the prime minister's residence.

  "It is not important who wins, but it is important that Afghanistan makes its own future," he told reporters. "This is a very great day. God is very kind to us."
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