KABUL, Afghanistan, August 22, 2009 — President Hamid Karzai and his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, both claimed to be winning the presidential election as ballots were counted Friday. But Western officials here said it looked increasingly likely that the two would face a runoff.

The possibility of a second round of voting, even as the candidates leveled accusations of fraud at each other, raised the prospect of an extended period of uncertainly for the war-torn country. The credibility of the vote on Thursday was further tarnished by new reports showing that violence in the south was greater — and turnout lower — than even already grim accounts on election day had suggested.

The election commission called on both Mr. Karzai and Mr. Abdullah not to speculate about the results and to wait for the official count. Preliminary results were not expected until Tuesday, and final results at least two weeks after that.

Complaints of fraud and specific incidents of ballot stuffing continued to grow in the meantime and may assume increasing importance in a close race.

The extent of the violence and intimidation by Talibaninsurgents not only called in question whether significant parts of the country had been heard in the vote but also the progress of the fight against the insurgency.

In the southern provinces like Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul, turnout was as low as 5 to 10 percent, according to one Western official. That is less than half of what it was in those regions in the nation’s first presidential election five years ago.

Earlier claims by the government of deals with the Taliban to allow elections to go ahead did not materialize. Instead election day provided a bleak snapshot of the extent of the insurgents’ influence in large parts of the country.

The southern province of Kandahar alone was hit by 122 Taliban rockets on election day, mainly aimed at the towns, according to the Western official. Twenty rockets hit the city of Kandahar and 4 people were killed and 12 wounded, hospital officials said.

There are also reports from eastern Afghanistan that on the outskirts of Jalalabad, insurgents cut off the ink-stained fingers of several people in punishment for voting.

Turnout was moderate to high in the northern and central provinces and in the eastern province of Nangarhar and western city of Herat, both large population centers, but the overall turnout is expected to be about 40 percent, again lower than both the previous presidential election in 2004 and parliamentary elections 2005. At least some of the drop could be attributed to disillusionment with the struggling democratic government.

Mr. Karzai will be most affected by the low turnout in the south, which is his base of support. On the other hand, the big turnout in the north and west showed that his alliance with the Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum paid off and brought the Uzbek vote in for him, diplomats said.

Mr. Karzai’s staff insisted that his results were good, including in parts of the north, and that he was still on track to win the election outright. A candidate needs more than 50 percent to win in the first round.

“Based on initial information from media and our observers from areas where ballots were counted already, it shows that President Karzai is ahead of other candidates,” said his campaign spokesman, Waheed Omar.

Mr. Abdullah, a former foreign minister and an eye doctor who has trailed Mr. Karzai in the polls, has been aiming to prevent a first-round win at all costs. But his campaign team suggested Friday that his results were good enough for him to win outright as well.

“So far, the initial counts that we have from different provinces show that Dr. Abdullah is clearly ahead of President Karzai,” said his spokesman, Sayed Aqa Fazil Sancharaki. “If we go like this until the end of ballot counting, Dr. Abdullah will be the winner in the first round.”

An informal count by The New York Times of results posted at 12 polling centers around Kabul revealed that nowhere did Mr. Karzai win more than 50 percent of the vote.

Numbers varied greatly depending on the area and type of population, but out of 17,891 votes cast, the two candidates appeared to be neck and neck, with Mr. Karzai averaging 38 percent across the 12 polling centers and Mr. Abdullah 39 percent.

In his home city of Kandahar, in a count of four polling centers, Mr. Karzai was leading with 87 percent over Mr. Abdullah’s 6 percent. But turnout there was decidedly low.

Mr. Abdullah’s campaign team said it had made official complaints about fraud in six provinces, all of them ethnic Pashtun provinces that would be expected to favor Mr. Karzai.

Election observers were varied in their early opinions, with some saying the low turnout was an indication of just how bad the situation is in southern Afghanistan, and others saying that just holding an election was a success.

“This was one of the most violent days witnessed in Afghanistan in the last eight years,” Rachel Reid, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Afghanistan, said in an e-mailed statement. “Early impressions of turnout suggest that violence and intimidation succeeded in keeping voters away from polling stations in a huge swath of the country, which adds up to a successful day for the Taliban,” she said.

The International Republican Institute said that despite problems, including lower turnout than previous elections, and concerns about fraud and multiple voting, the process so far had been “credible.”

The deputy director of the Afghan Election Commission, Daoud Ali Najafi, acknowledged the low turnout, in particular in Helmand, where thousands of British and American troops had mounted operations in recent weeks, but he estimated that the countrywide turnout would be roughly 50 percent, the same as for parliamentary elections in 2005, and that would make the election credible.

Democracy International expressed concern that withholding preliminary results until Tuesday would heighten uncertainty in the political environment and raise tensions.

Abdul Waheed Wafa, Ruhullah Khapalwak and Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Source: AP

Home | Contact us | Links | Archives | Search