Afghanistan’s main opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah yesterday accused the government of using the country’s justice system to manipulate the results of September’s parliamentary election.
The attorney general has opened a criminal probe into the results, arresting nine people and summoning election officials to answer accusations of fraud in a poll believed to have weakened the support base of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
“The government wanted to nullify the election and since that failed it’s using the attorney general’s office to pressure the election commissions,” former foreign minister Abdullah said.
“It’s another effort by them to have everything the way they want it ... it’s basically a propaganda war by the government against the election,” he said, branding the top prosecutor’s office neither independent nor trustworthy.
Meanwhile, a top Afghan election watchdog official also denounced political pressure from government and legal circles aimed at preventing candidates being disqualified after the parliamentary vote.
Afghanistan’s top prosecutor on Thursday summoned Election Complaints Commission (ECC) commissioner and spokesman Ahmad Zia Rafat, another ECC official and two top officials from the Independent Election Commission.
However, Rafat vowed not to “bow down to any kind of pressure by anyone.”
“I believe that these strongmen and some pressure groups within the government are using the attorney general’s office to put pressure on us. The attorney general’s office is attempting political revenge,” Rafat said. “We stood firm on our promise to people. We disqualified all those candidates who had committed fraud. We never gave in to any pressure by anyone.”
The arrests are the latest development in the Sept. 18 ballot that was plagued by irregularities and voter intimidation. Election officials discarded 1.3 million ballots — almost a quarter of the total — for fraud and disqualified 19 winning candidates for cheating.
Election officials announced final vote totals on Wednesday for 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. About 2,500 candidates ran for 249 seats in the lower house of the Afghan legislature, leaving hundreds of losers. Many have staged demonstrations across the country, claiming they were victims of phony vote tallies.
Releasing the final results irked Afghan Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Alako, who claimed election officials should have waited until prosecutors finished investigating criminal allegations of ballot manipulation.
Once the investigation is completed — hopefully within a month — the results will be handed to the Afghan Supreme Court, according to Afghan Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari.
A Western diplomatic official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the court had the authority to issue rulings that could change the outcome of certain races.
The prospect of the Supreme Court hearing election cases has raised speculation among Western diplomats, who allege that Karzai or his advisers are behind the investigation and would pressure the court to rule in favor of their candidates.
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