A UN-backed fraud commission threw out votes from 83 polling stations and ordered recounts at hundreds of others in three provinces that form Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s political base, reducing his chances of avoiding a runoff.
The ruling on Thursday was the first time the commission has flexed its muscles in the aftermath of an Aug. 20 presidential election marred by allegations of ballot stuffing, phantom polling stations and turnout at some polls that exceeded 100 percent of registered voters.
In an interview with The Associated Press, former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s chief challenger, said the massive scale of what he called “state-engineered” fraud has become clear only as the numbers have trickled out over the past three weeks.
With results in from 92 percent of the country’s polling stations, Karzai has 54 percent of the vote, according to the latest official count. That would be enough to avoid a runoff election with Abdullah, who has 28 percent.
But if the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission invalidates enough votes, Karzai’s margin could drop below 50 percent, forcing him to face Abdullah one-on-one in a second round of voting.
FINAL DECISION
Decisions by this fraud commission are final under Afghanistan’s electoral law. The group — comprised of one American, one Canadian, one from the Netherlands and two Afghans — is releasing decisions from each province as investigations finish.
On Thursday, the commission threw out ballots from 51 polling stations in Kandahar province, 27 in Ghazni and five in Paktika.
Although it did not say how many ballots were invalidated, thousands are likely involved. It ordered election officials to recount votes in hundreds of other voting centers across the three districts in the presence of observers, commission members and representatives of the candidates.
All three provinces are dominated by voters who, like Karzai, are ethnic Pashtuns and form the president’s political base.
QUESTIONABLE VOTES
The Karzai-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC), which is conducting the count, says it has deducted questionable votes from its totals.
However, that commission’s Web site still lists results from one polling center in the Kandahar city of Spin Boldak where Karzai received exactly 3,000 votes, 600 from each of the five polling stations.
Statisticians say such uniform results are highly unlikely and evidence of fraud.
“Of course there were fears and concerns about the possibility of fraud or rigging,” Abdullah told reporters. “But ... when you investigate it, then you see that the whole thing was state-engineered and unfortunately in collaboration with the IEC, in most cases.”
Abdullah said he expected that, once the fraudulent ballots are excluded, Karzai’s margin would drop below 50 percent, triggering a runoff.
There are about 770 polling states still being counted in Kandahar, according to the IEC Web site, meaning the 51 thrown out in the province represent about 5 percent of voting sites.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique