Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s main challenger said that he had evidence last week’s election had been widely rigged by the incumbent and that he had lodged more than 100 complaints.
With counting underway following Thursday’s vote, the country is on tenterhooks before an official result, although the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and a relative lull in violence has helped calm tensions.
Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, whom polls gave a fighting chance of pushing the election to a second round, said he had evidence of widespread rigging. Abdullah and Karzai’s camp both say they are ahead in the vote count.
“The initial reports we are receiving are a bit alarming, I must say,” he said. “There might have been thousands of violations throughout the country, no doubt about it.”
The controversy threatens to discredit an election that the Obama administration considers a key step in a new strategy to turn back the Taliban insurgency.
It could also delay formation of a new government and fuel growing doubts in the United States about whether its worth continuing to fight the war in Afghanistan.
Washington has poured thousands more troops into Afghanistan this year as part of Obama’s new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban, but polls show support for the 8-year-old war is slipping as casualties increase from the growing insurgency.
“I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I’ve said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics,” said admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mullen told CNN television that General Stanley McChrystal, commander of some 102,000 US and Nato troops in Afghanistan, had not yet asked for more forces. Nato military commanders told visiting US envoy Richard Holbrooke on Sunday that they needed more troops and other resources to beat back a resurgent Taliban, particularly in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.
Two opinion polls before the election predicted Karzai would win but not by enough to prevent a second round run-off against Abdullah in October. Karzai must win more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
Millions of Afghans braved threats of Taliban violence to vote in what was only the country’s second presidential election.
Abdullah said the southern provinces of Ghazni and Kandahar — the birthplace of the Taliban — were major areas of concern. He said vastly exaggerated voter turnouts were being reported, as well as ballot box stuffing well after the actual vote.
