New York: The allegations of fraud in the recent general elections in Afghanistan in which Hamid Karzai won a majority is being investigated, a senior UN official has said.
It was not clear at this point whether there would be need for another round of elections, the senior official from the UN Elections Assistance Division spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity.
The results were "all over the place" and "not all the ballot boxes have been stuffed”. He added that "it takes time to do this stuff," and a final determination would take the next few weeks.
The UN official also pointed out that the nine southern provinces, which are suspected of vote-rigging, were being investigated but it was very difficult to make a call on whether fraud occurred.
The incumbent Afghan President Hamid Karzai won these nine provinces by huge numbers in 2004. This year, while he was leading in these provinces, it was by far lesser numbers.
He stressed that the UN would not be involved in the detection of fraud but this was being undertaken by an independent Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), which is a five-member body made up of three foreigners and two Afghan nationals.
"The UN does not adjudicate on these matters. We don`t have the ability or mandate," he said. "We`re not going to know if the fraud is massive or small until the election complaints commission decides."
There was fraud in 2004 and 2005 elections as well but there was not a robust ECC, the senior official said, underlining that there were more than 5,000 complaints in the previous elections and around 3,000 in the 2009 elections. Out of these 700 are priority complaints.
Somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 ballots are being checked out of a total of 26,000. If sufficient ballots are invalidated then there will be a second round of elections.
The UN involvement in the Afghan elections has also come under sharp scrutiny after the world body removed Peter Galbraith, its second-in-command in Afghanistan. Galbraith has accused the UN for allowing election irregularities in favour of Karzai`s campaign.
He has complained against the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG), Kai Eide, for blocking attempts that could have lessened the fraud. The independence of the ECC has also come into question since three of its members are appointed by the SRSG`s office.
The senior official rejected the idea that the UN officials in Afghanistan was biased in favour of Karzai, and added that may differences of opinion existed at the UN mission, which was definitely not a campaign office for the current Afghan leader.
Bureau Report
