Landslide win for Karzai?

LONDON: As the raw polling station data declared Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan’s re-elected president in a landslide victory, allegations of
vote-rigging have begun to surface. Early figures from campaign team observers suggest Karzai has won 72% of the vote with his closest rivalbdullah Abdullah gaining 23%, The Telegraph reports.

If confirmed, the scale of the win will provoke accusations of vote-rigging with electoral officials saying that they are already investigating dozens of complaints of fraud on a scale profound enough to sway the result. Karzai needs over 50% of the vote to avoid a second round run off against his former foreign minister.

However, it will be hotly contested after the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said it had received 225 complaints since polls opened on Thursday for the presidential and provincial council elections.

“Thirty five have been assigned as high priority and these are ones that we had to deem to be material to the outcome of the election results,” said Grant Kippen, head of the commission.

Abdullah said his campaign team had received alarming reports of irregularity. “There might have been thousands of violations throughout the country, no doubt about it,” he said.

His allegations were dismissed by a spokesman for the Karzai campaign, who said it had also filed complaints about Abdullah’s supporters’ activities. Waheed Omer said unsuccessful campaigns would file complaints to “try to justify their loss”.