EU mission casts doubt on Karzai election win

Published on Wednesday 16 September 2009 22:02

AFGHAN incumbent Hamid Karzai won last month's presidential election outright in the first round, officials said yesterday; but the European Union cast doubt on more than a third of votes cast for him.

Afghan election authorities issued preliminary results showing Mr Karzai received 54.6 per cent of the vote. His main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, got 27.8 per cent. The results must be approved by a separate election fraud watchdog, which has called for a recount of about 10 per cent of polling stations.

But a spokesman for Mr Karzai said only a "miracle" for his opponents could prevent the victory. A final result pending the fraud investigation could be weeks away, however, prolonging a state of political limbo that has led to fears of instability and concern among western donors that a future government may lack a clear mandate.

A European Union election observer mission said it believed that up to 1.5 million votes cast in the 20 August election – including 1.1 million for Mr Karzai – were "suspicious".

"Any claim of victory will be premature and not credible," said Phillipe Morillon the head of the mission. Mr Karzai's campaign team called the statement "irresponsible" and said only the official Electoral Complaints Commission (backed by the United Nations) was empowered to find fraud.

Ali Najafi of the Afghan election commission also criticised the EU team for making its assessment public before the complaints process had been completed. "Observers observe. They can give advice … but they do not have the right to interfere," he said. Asked about the votes the EU team described as suspicious, he said: "I don't know where they got this figure from."

The fraud accusations have come at a difficult time for US president Barack Obama, who has ordered thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan and is expected to make a decision soon about whether to send more. The war is increasingly unpopular in the US and Mr Obama may find it more difficult to persuade Americans to send soldiers to defend a government whose legitimacy might be called into question.

Mr Morillon said fraud had been carried out by "unscrupulous, overzealous supporters … from every camp", including 300,000 suspicious ballots for Mr Abdullah.

The final tally showed Mr Karzai with 3.1 million of the 5.7 million valid votes counted. If all votes considered suspect by the EU were omitted, he would have two million out of 4.2 million, shy of the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a run-off.