AN ELECTION watchdog said it expected to receive thousands of complaints from candidates in Afghanistan’s parliamentary polls as a deluge of reports of fraud filtered in from southern areas where the insurgency is fiercest.
The Electoral Complaints Commission, set up to handle reports of abuses at the vote on Saturday, said it had already received more than 700 complaints of irregularities and that the figure could rise to 3,000 in the next few days.
In a pattern that mirrored last year’s flawed presidential election, some of the most serious reports of irregularities originated in the southern Kandahar Province, where thousands of US troops have deployed to battle Taliban insurgents as part of the troop surge.
An election observer said three candidates had complained that ballot boxes were being stuffed in the southern district of Spin Boldak, which is controlled by Col Abdul Raziq, the commander of a 3,500-strong contingent of Afghan border police.
Spin Boldak, part of the southern Kandahar Province, emerged as a focal point for fraud allegations made during the last elections when the opposition accused Col Raziq of orchestrating vote-fixing on behalf of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president.
Farishta Afghan, a candidate in Kandahar, said she had heard reports of abuses including the inflation of tallies at two polling stations in Spin Boldak during Saturday’s ballot. “Eighty people voted but the number of votes was in the thousands,” she said.
Col Raziq, who is in his early 30s and illiterate, has emerged as an increasingly important ally for the US military, which needs his help to secure the free flow of Nato supply trucks through the frontier, although he has proved a controversial ally.
A UN-backed complaints commission threw out large numbers of votes cast in Spin Boldak when they struck out roughly a third of the ballots cast for Mr Karzai at the last election. The prevalence of fraud in Spin Boldak has prompted election observers to question a decision by Afghanistan’s election authorities to increase the number of polling stations in the district for the parliamentary polls.
Reports of fraud also emerged in other parts of the south. Kakar Khan, an agent for a candidate in the southern Zabul province, said 45 people voted in Deh Chopan district but 2,000 votes were recorded by officials. “Where did these votes come from? Nobody has told us,” he said. Abdul Qadeer Qalatwal, a candidate in Zabul, said only 35 women voted in the Share Safa district, but 900 votes were counted. “The same thing happened in most polling stations in Zabul province.”
The elections are being watched closely in western capitals, where Nato allies are struggling to maintain public support for the international mission. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010 )