Narrow Window for Afghan Election Runoff
Afghan officials say they will recount 10 percent of suspect ballot boxes to speed long-delayed results of the disputed presidential election.
The Afghan election commission and a U.N.-backed panel investigating widespread fraud allegations said in a statement Friday that they agreed to audit and recount ballots from 313 of the 3,063 polling stations deemed suspicious because of more than 100 percent turnout or nearly all votes cast for one candidate.
Grant Kippen, the Canadian head of the U.N.-backed panel, said the sample was determined with the help of outside election experts and he is confident it will provide a fair result.
He said the margin of error with the sample size is less than one percentage point.
Preliminary results from Afghanistan's Aug. 20 vote show President Hamid Karzai winning outright with 54.6 percent.
But the election has been mired in allegations of ballot stuffing and voter coercion, and if enough votes are found to be fraudulent, Karzai could dip below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff with challenger Abdullah Abdullah.
Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan
Meanwhile, an election official has warned that Afghanistan has a narrow two-week window in October to hold any presidential runoff before winter snows arrive - a reminder of how minor delays could leave a power vacuum well into next year.
The uncertainty puts the government on hold as Taliban attacks spike, and threatens the administration's credibility at home and abroad.
The main question at this point is how much misconduct is acceptable to both Afghans and an international community skeptical of sending troops in support of a tainted government.
A top official from Afghanistan's election commission said Thursday that members were committed to holding a runoff vote if called for by fraud investigations and the ordered recounts and audits.
"It should be according to international standards," said Daoud Ali Najafi, the chief electoral officer of the Afghan election commission. Najafi promised that they would be ready for a runoff as soon as the third week in October, but that pushing it past the end of that month would be unrealistic because of the onset of winter.
Official statements from the United Nations and the Obama administration have called for a thorough investigation into all claims and to rigorously root out fraudulent ballots.
Yet there appears to be disagreement (within the U.N., at least) on how to handle the issue of fraud. The top American official at the U.N. mission here went on leave to Vermont earlier this month after differing with his boss over the process of dealing with suspect votes.
And Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on CNN Sunday that Afghanistan should not be judged like "a perfect Jeffersonian democracy."
Najafi (left) said the election must be held before the end of October, when entire provinces get closed down by winter snows, leaving just a two-week window for the runoff.
Najafi said he hopes final results will be known with enough time to hold any runoff this fall, but said it is not worth compromising the integrity of the vote to rush the process. If a runoff is called too late, Najafi said the commission would try to negotiate a solution with all parties. He left the possibility vague, but some people involved in the process have hinted at either an interim government or some sort of power-sharing deal.
Many of the debates about a second-round vote have been about whether it would just rubber stamp Karzai's win, or if longshot contender Abdullah, a former foreign minister, could pull enough support from the 30-odd other candidates to unseat him. Abdullah has 27.8 percent in preliminary results.