Kabul: The UN-backed watchdog overseeing a fraud investigation in Afghanistan's Aug. 20 vote altered its ballot-counting rules on Wednesday, ditching a plan criticised for favouring President Hamid Karzai.
The new recount rules, which watchdog officials said were a "clarification", take into account the possibility one candidate may have disproportionately benefitted from fraud, a finding that would be necessary in order for Karzai to be forced to face a second round.
The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), mainly appointed by the United Nations, has ordered a recount of ballot boxes it deemed suspicious -- around 12 percent of the total -- after finding "clear and convincing evidence of fraud".
To speed it up, officials are sampling 10 percent of those suspicious boxes.
Preliminary results gave Karzai 54.6 percent of the vote. If the fraud investigation reduces his share below 50 percent, he would face a run-off against his main challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.
For that to happen, the commission would have to find fraud overwhelmingly benefitted Karzai, which the President denies.
Under rules the ECC announced on Monday, such a finding would have been unlikely, because the commission said it would eliminate the same percentage of votes for all candidates from groups of ballots that were suspicious for the same reason.
On Wednesday, it issued new guidelines, which specify a separate percentage of fraudulent ballots would be calculated for each candidate, so candidates who benefitted more from fraud would face a greater penalty.
Diplomats say about 75 percent of the ballots in the suspicious group were cast for Karzai. Karzai's opponents say his share of the fraud may have been far greater, because most of the fraud took place in the south, where he won overwhelming support.
Under Monday's rules, more than 1 million ballots could be found to be fraudulent and Karzai would still win in a single round. Under the revised rules, Karzai could potentially face a second round if as few as 520,000 votes are disqualified.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, October 07, 2009, 18:40