Washington Post: UN Data Shows Vote Discrepancies in Afghan Election
By VOA News
07 October 2009
Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) worker takes photograph after looking for patterns of irregularities in Kabul, 13 Sep 2009
A major U.S. newspaper says confidential U.N. data on Afghanistan＇s disputed presidential election show the official vote count in some provinces exceeded the estimated number of voters by more than 100,000.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that a U.N. spreadsheet kept secret by the U.N. chief envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, showed widespread discrepancies between estimated turnout and the Independent Election Commission＇s vote results.
These discrepancies were especially prevalent in the volatile southern and eastern provinces, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai won with large margins. For example, the Independent Election Commission recorded about 135,000 votes in southern Helmand province, but the U.N. estimated that between 5,000 and 38,000 people there voted.
The U.N. data from the August 20 election also alleges fraud by followers of Abdullah Abdullah but on a much smaller scale.
Peter Galbraith, the top U.S. official with the United Nations mission to Afghanistan who was removed from his post last month, said Sunday he was repeatedly ordered not to pursue the issue of fraud.
Galbraith said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon removed him not over a disagreement about how to handle reports of widespread fraud, but over whether to address the fraud.
He said he learned in July that at least 1,500 of the 7,000 polling centers were located in places so insecure that Afghan election officials and security forces had never even visited them.
Galbraith added that these sites produced hundreds of thousands of phony votes for Mr. Karzai, who appointed all seven members of the ballot-counting Independent Election Commission.
Afghan election officials say workers are recounting some of the ballots from the presidential election and expect to formally declare a winner by late next week.
Controversy surrounds the poll with allegations of rampant fraud and vote-rigging.
Independent monitors have said one third of all ballots are suspicious. Unofficial tallies indicate Mr. Karzai leads with about 54 percent of the vote. If his lead dips below 50 percent, he could face top challenger Abdullah Abdullah in a runoff.
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