Afghan election officials announced most of the long-delayed results from a Sept. 18 parliamentary poll yesterday, but the disqualification of three more candidates and angry protests further clouded the poll.
The credibility of the result will weigh heavily on US President Barack Obama’s review of his Afghanistan war strategy, due next month, amid rising violence and sagging public support, especially after a fraud-marred presidential election last year.
Consistent allegations of vote fraud in both elections have raised questions about the credibility of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government at a time when both US and NATO officials have been re-examining their long-term commitment in Afghanistan.
PHOTO: AFP
Yesterday’s events will not have helped that process. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) had promised to release full results more than 10 weeks after the poll but IEC chairman Fazl Ahmad Manawi said results in Ghazni Province southwest of Kabul had still to be determined.
The other 33 provinces plus one seat for Kuchi nomads were announced. IEC spokeswoman Marzia Siddiqi Salim said, without Ghazni’s 11 allocated seats, 238 places in the 249-seat wolesi jirga, or lower house, had been decided.
“It might be in a week,” Siddiqi said when asked when a new parliament would be formed.
Manawi said another three winning candidates had been disqualified over irregularities, taking the total thrown out by the IEC to 24.
Despite the widespread concerns about fraud, and calls by protesters for the vote to be annulled, Manawi said there would not be another election.
“We are not planning to hold another election in any place,” Manawi told a news conference.
Disgruntled candidates, lawmakers and supporters have in recent weeks called for the September poll to be scrapped.
Dozens took to the streets of Kabul yesterday to protest against a polling process they say was corrupt and shameful.
About 150 people gathered outside Karzai’s palace. Some carried banners saying “Hijacked parliament = collapse of democracy” and “IEC is the enemy of democracy.”
Riot police looked on and roads around the palace were blocked.
“Blocking the road and launching violence because they have not got a seat is not the right thing to do and is a malicious act against the country,” Karzai said.
The protesters, mostly disgruntled candidates and their supporters, have warned that failure to address grievances about the poll would push Afghans towards the insurgency.
“It doesn’t matter who is winning or losing, we will continue to protest until the officials in the government hear us and the Afghan people learn about the widespread fraud that happened during this election,” said lawmaker Noor ul Haq Olomi, from Kandahar Province
About 2,500 candidates ran for the 249 available seats. A UN-backed watchdog said on Sunday nearly one in 10 winning candidates had been disqualified for fraud.
Those disqualifications by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) cleared the way for the IEC to release final results.
There were more than 6,000 complaints lodged with ECC and the IEC has already thrown out almost a quarter of the 5.6 million votes cast as invalid. The IEC is also being investigated by the attorney general’s office over election fraud.
On Tuesday, Afghan media reported two election officials —one each from the IEC and ECC — had been suspended by the attorney general’s office for “making statements against the national interest.”
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
Pakistani police yesterday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her TikTok account. In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces. “The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said. Investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor,” the police report said. The man was subsequently arrested. The girl’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” said police in
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
RSS