The US has canceled funding for opinion polls in the run-up to Afghanistan’s presidential election after an initial poll in December triggered accusations of US attempts to manipulate the outcome, officials said.
A spokesman for Democracy International said on Thursday that the US-funded group and other similar organizations had planned to carry out opinion polls as Afghanistan prepares for the April 5 election.
The US embassy in Kabul later confirmed the funding cut.
“Statements by some electoral authorities and candidates’ camps suggested that there was ... a perception that the polling results were somehow biased,” a US embassy spokesman said.
“In order to avoid any perception — however baseless — of US interference, we have decided to forgo additional US-funded polling regarding the upcoming election,” he said.
The cut in funding comes as relations between the US and Afghanistan have been severely strained over Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a bilateral security pact that would enable US troops to stay beyond this year.
The election is seen as crucial to Afghanistan’s efforts to build stability, months before most foreign forces are due to withdraw, leaving Afghan forces to battle a resilient Taliban insurgency.
Democracy International program officer Mohammad Atta said the group had planned three rounds of opinion polls. It published its first results in December, but its findings provoked a public outcry and accusations of interference.
“There were a few agencies that were responsible for conducting the polls, but all of them have been canceled at the moment,” Atta said.
Karzai has long suspected the US of having interfered in the last presidential election in 2009 and has warned against further meddling.
Former US secretary of defense Robert Gates recently published a memoir appearing to confirm Karzai’s suspicion, saying the then-top US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan had been “doing his best to bring about the defeat of Karzai.”
Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said Washington may try to use polling as a means to influence the outcome of the April election.
“It is now crystal clear that there was interference in the election in 2009,” he said. “It puts the US role behind such funding under question. Why would the US fund surveys on Afghan presidential candidates?”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the