A fraud probe into the August elections has trimmed Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s vote share to just 47 percent, a report said yesterday, while a senior aide conceded a second round could be in the offing.
The much-awaited tally by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission will trigger a run-off between Karzai and his nearest competitor, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, because Karzai’s portion of the Aug. 20 vote was lowered to below 50 percent, the Washington Post reported.
One official familiar with the tally, due to be finalized yesterday, described the results to the newspaper as “stunning.”
Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission had given Karzai 54.6 percent in its preliminary results, which would position him for a second five-year term. Those results gave Abdullah around 28 percent of the vote.
But Afghan Ambassador to the US Said Tayeb Jawad conceded for the first time on Thursday that the disputed elections could enter a second round and pushed to hold the run-off quickly.
He said he has not personally spoken to election authorities who are expected to make an announcement within days.
But Jawad, who has served as Karzai’s chief of staff and press secretary, became the first member of his circle to speak publicly of plans for a new vote after Western-led allegations of major poll fraud.
“A run-off is a likely scenario,” Jawad said at the US Institute of Peace. “If that’s what it is, everyone should work very hard to make that happen.”
Jawad said the next round of elections should be held quickly, charging that a delay would create headaches for other nations.
“The Constitution requires a run-off be done within two weeks but that’s impossible. So four weeks will push it into early November and that’s the latest that it will happen because after that it will be extremely cold, especially in northern Afghanistan,” Jawad said.
“But if it’s delayed to spring, this is clearly a recipe for disaster — this creates a lot of confusion, a lot of indecisiveness and also further complicated relations” with the outside world, he said.
Karzai has rejected charges of widespread irregularities as “totally fabricated” and “politically instigated,” testing the patience of Western nations that have been his key backers.
EU observers said a quarter of all votes, or 1.5 million ballots, were suspect. Afghan election authorities are reviewing disputed ballots. A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expected a final announcement on Sunday or Monday.
Ballots listing both candidates, printed in London in anticipation of a possible run-off, have already arrived at the UN mission in Kabul, a US official in Afghanistan told the Washington Post. The necessary indelible ink was also on hand and polling station kits were expected to be readied for distribution this week, the paper said.
A run-off was planned if Karzai’s valid votes fall below 50 percent as a result of the investigations, although questions remain about how effective a new poll would be.
Abdullah said in Kabul that he was hopeful the investigations would result in a run-off. But he warned that if a run-off were not called, “those who are behind the fraud and tolerate fraud will be responsible for the consequences.”
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