Afghanistan - elections

UN admits election irregularities

Article published on the 2009-10-12 Latest update 2009-10-12 13:22 TU

Election posters in Herat, Afghanistan,16 August 2009.
(Photo: Reuters)

The United Nations has admitted that electoral fraud during the Afghan elections was considerable. This late admission comes ahead of a decision by US President Barack Obama on whether or not to deploy tens of thousands of extra soldiers, in addition to the 68,000 already present.

It has taken the United Nations a long time to admit that fraudulent manipulations took place during the elections, despite UN supervision.

Norwegian Kai Eide, called a news conference on Sunday to counter allegations by his sacked deputy, American Peter Galbraith, that he had concealed evidence of vote fraud. 

Eide said the US fully supported investigations into election fraud. Refering to findings of the Electoral Complaints Commission and to an audit of suspicious ballot boxes by the Independent Election Commission last week, he said "It has been claimed that there was 30 per cent fraud. There is no way to know at this stage what the level of fraud is."

He also mentionned the fact that in most polling stations in the south and south-east there had been significant fraud.

Afghan and international observers noted that outgoing president Hamid Karzai benefited most from the numerous irregularities. In preliminary results Karzai leads with 55 per cent of the votes.

Potentially suspect ballots will be evaluated before the final results are announced during the week.