Kabul, September 09: Afghanistan was plunged into crisis over its disputed elections yesterday, with Hamid Karzai passing the 50 per cent threshold to make him outright winner but locked in an escalating confrontation with the West over allegations of massive fraud.
To add to the growing chaos, the two monitoring bodies for the election were at loggerheads. A United Nations- backed commission, the Election Complaints Commission (ECC), with Western representatives forming a majority, yesterday ordered a recount of ballots because of the alleged voting malpractice. But that demand was challenged by a second, Afghan-dominated body, the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which went on to publish the results, effectively giving Mr Karzai victory.
In proceedings descending into near farce, the chief electoral officer of the IEC claimed the recounting order had been lost in translation. He had, he continued, sent it back to the ECC “because the Persian version of the document did not match the English version”. The official, Daoud Ali Najafi, declared at first that the ECC demand contradicted the polling criteria for the election. He later stated that if the order was indeed to carry out recounts, “we will have to do it, but it will take a long time, maybe two or three months”.
–Agencies