Afghanistan Election Fraud?

wes

Read the following interesting story in Al Jazeera today:

EU: Afghan vote fraud widespread

EU election observers have said that about 1.5 million votes cast in Afghanistan's elections last month could be fraudulent - almost a third of ballots cast.

The deputy head of the EU Election Observation Mission to Afghanistan, Dimitra Ioannou, told reporters on Wednesday that 1.1 million votes cast for the incumbent Hamid Karzai were suspicious.

Ioannou said there had also been 300,000 questionable votes for his main rival Abdullah Abdullah, with the rest of the suspicious votes cast for other candidates.

Click here for Full Story

I find it very interesting that there seems to be such a large amount of suspected electoral fraud, not to disimilar to the Iranian election fiasco, we witnessed not too long ago. What is doubly interesting is that, this was a Western backed election, and that in all likelihood that these results will be accepted by Western governments, with no fuss.

Biggins

A simple cased of "one rule for them and one rule for us".
Nothing new to us here in our own country.

wes

Yes, it certainly seems to be that way, but the information in the story does come from the EU. So someone in the EU, must be annoyed by this at the very least.

OS119

there isn't 'no fuss', there is however a problem of 'what to do about it?'

every government in ISAF knows that Kharzai is a corrupt creep, and that the other creeps who he depends on to hold power - who conversely depend on him to allow them to hold power in their areas - have tried very hard to stitch up the election.

they know that, they also know that Kharzai is no longer 'their man', the problem is that the Afghan state now exists to such a degree where ISAF can't just say 'this is rubbish you corrupt little fcuk, off you go and we'll have some proper elections' while also maintaining that Afghanistan is an indepedendant country and functioning state - so they are stuck in a bind which either forces them to disband the Afghan state and bring forward new elections, or they get to grit their teeth, and accept Kharzai and his heroin smuggling, vote-rigging, rape-victim stoning mates.

NATO is the arbitor of power in this situation, if NATO declared the results invalid and that they were no longer supporting Kharzai as the legitimate leader of A'stan his 'friends' would drop him like a steaming turd and he'd be on the next flight, however, they would then be completely demolishing the principle of Afghanistan being a legitimate, sovereign state.

which is best, overt, outright imperial power that can negate election results it thinks are rubbish, or gritting your teeth and accepting that the independent country you're shedding blood to hold above the water is turning into Zimbabwe?

you'll note that neither of these options is attractive...

Nodin

I believe our American friends use the term "Clusterfuck" for this kind of situation.

Should the Taleban and other elements be at least held back more in the future, it might be possible to deploy sufficient NATO observers and personnell to ensure a fair vote. I don't hold much hope though, certainly in the near future.

In addition, one might question the whole set up. The Soviets couldn't make a centralised Kabul administration work, and they pulled few if any punches in their time there.

lostexpectation

no hoo hah from people, like wear green for iranian election fraud, cos it doesn't suit the US to whip up naieve patsies westerners over this

OS119

lostexpectation wrote: »

no hoo hah from people, like wear green for iranian election fraud, cos it doesn't suit the US to whip up naieve patsies westerners over this

it doesn't suit anybody to whip up feeling about it (yet) because nobody has decided which of two very unattractive options to choose in response to it.

which would you suggest, and then what would you say when they did it?

FlutterinBantam

So Western Democracys want states with mad mullahs in charge fomenting terrorism on their countries and threatening world peace??

Manic Moran

NATO is the arbitor of power in this situation, if NATO declared the results invalid

No, NATO isn't. ISAF has gone to extremes to be as disassociated from the election process as possible. NATO isn't in a position to declare the results valid or not, that's the job of any other organisations out there that may have been keeping more tabs on the process than we were.

NTM

OS119

Manic Moran wrote: »

No, NATO isn't. ISAF has gone to extremes to be as disassociated from the election process as possible. NATO isn't in a position to declare the results valid or not, that's the job of any other organisations out there that may have been keeping more tabs on the process than we were.

NTM

i disagree, while NATO isn't involved - and has worked hard not to be involved - in the elections, NATO is the power behind the throne.

without NATO's support Kharzai is barely mayor of his own house, and NATO has enough information (both through its own sources and the other agencies more involved in the running of the elections) to make a decision about whether the election was rigged or not and NATO has a choice about whether its involved in A'stan or not.

if we don't support him he's out, ergo its NATO, not the UN, or even the Afghan Election Commission that is the de facto, if not de jure arbiter of power.

brianthebard

wes wrote: »

Yes, it certainly seems to be that way, but the information in the story does come from the EU. So someone in the EU, must be annoyed by this at the very least.

Rather than showing that the EU or a section of it is annoyed about the election results it shows that without the backing of the main powers the EU organisation or sub organistions can submit any amount of articles about illegalities and undemocratic activity at home or abroad and it will be completely ignored by anybody with any power to change the situation.

nacho libre

According to the Sunday Telegraph, the Americans are pushing for a deal to be done between Abdullah and Karzai.

lostexpectation

OS119 wrote: »

it doesn't suit anybody to whip up feeling about it (yet) because nobody has decided which of two very unattractive options to choose in response to it.

there was two unattractive options in iran also,( 3 unattractive options perhaps if include us puppet shah sons)

jmayo

Don't now if this has appeaed already in this thread but has anybody tapped the Afghanistan government ot see if they want to buy some e-voting machines ?

Fratton Fred

jmayo wrote: »

Don't now if this has appeaed already in this thread but has anybody tapped the Afghanistan government ot see if they want to buy some e-voting machines ?

I think the Afghan government is just corrupt, not incompetant

tallaght01

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I think the Afghan government is just corrupt, not incompetant

They're a poxy disgrace. Their stance on women's rights is abhorrent. In the last few years of some kind of democracy, girls still get married off at ridiculously young ages and pregnancy death rates are possibly the highest in the world. Women can be legally (as far as I know) denied food by their husbands if they refuse sex.

What are our leaders doing associating with these people?

Nodin

tallaght01 wrote: »

They're a poxy disgrace. Their stance on women's rights is abhorrent. In the last few years of some kind of democracy, girls still get married off at ridiculously young ages and pregnancy death rates are possibly the highest in the world. Women can be legally (as far as I know) denied food by their husbands if they refuse sex.

What are our leaders doing associating with these people?

You must be under the impression they gave a crap in the first place....Alas, nay. Besides, theres very little they could ever do about a lot of those things. That kind of thing still happens in India and they've been trying to prevent it for decades now. Thats a country with a far better infrastructure than Afghanistan.

tallaght01

Nodin wrote: »

You must be under the impression they gave a crap in the first place....Alas, nay. Besides, theres very little they could ever do about a lot of those things. That kind of thing still happens in India and they've been trying to prevent it for decades now. Thats a country with a far better infrastructure than Afghanistan.

It happens in Sub-saharan africa, north africa, southern asia and a stack of places around the world.
It's not an infrastructural issue. IN fact, it's one of the few issues that has an inconsistent correlation with development.

The only point I'm really making is that the electoral fraud is the least of my worries. I'd rather they concentrated on getting someone into power who looks after their vulnerable people, as opposed to someone who is friendly. It's very frustrating to see the yearly stats not change at all, or get worse, despite the investment in that country.

Manic Moran

tallaght01 wrote: »

It's very frustrating to see the yearly stats not change at all, or get worse, despite the investment in that country.

Don't know what stats you're looking at. For example, the road network has doubled since 2002, the infant mortility rate has dropped over 24%. (And is still the second-worst in the world, which lets you know how bad it used to be!)

NTM

tallaght01

The WHO have just released their world health stats for 2009.

They say the following about afghanistan:

Lie expectancy 1990: 42

2000: 41

2007: 42

Infant mortality 1990: 168

2000:168

2007:165

These don't look like change to me.

No one has 2009 figures yet. Anyway, infant mortality rates are oly one indicator of what's going on in a health service. I was more talking about their pregnancy death rates. they're still hanging at 1600 mums dying per 100,000 babies being born, which is I think, the worst in the world.