Afghan Candidates Declare Results 'Invalid'
Opponents Complain of Multiple Vote-Casting, Improper Procedures
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 9, 2004; 1:42 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 9 -- After a relatively peaceful and orderly start, Afghanistan's first-ever presidential election was thrown into chaos Saturday after 15 candidates opposing President Hamid Karzai declared the results invalid, complaining of multiple vote-casting and other improper procedures.
The contretemps threatened to ruin the credibility of an historic poll that has cost the international community almost $200 million to stage, attracted more than 10 million Afghans to register as voters, and been viewed as a crucial milestone in Afghanistan's emergence from 25 years of war and turmoil into a stable, modernizing country.
The candidates' complaints stood in sharp contrast to the enthusiastic spirit of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who lined up outside village schools and mosques on a chilly, windswept morning to cast the first vote of their lives. Whoever won, they told visitors over and over, they hoped the election would bring peace and security. The national election commission said in mid-afternoon it would allow the election to continue despite the candidates' protests but that it would investigate any complaints of irregularities. Ballot-counting was expected to take days because many polling stations were located in remote areas.
"Given the complexities of this electoral process, there have inevitably been some technical problems," said J. Ray Kennedy, an election commission official. But given the large turnout and "peaceful environment" of the vote thus far, he said, it would be "unjustified" to halt the election and deny many Afghans their fundamental rights.
Karzai, who has been heavily favored to win
a majority of votes, said Saturday evening that
the election had been "free and fair." He
urged all candidates to accept the results
as legitimate and to "respect our people,
because in the dust and snow and rain,
they waited hours and hours to vote."
But his opponents, a range of ethnic politicians,
former officials, tribal leaders and professionals,
declared repeatedly during the day that the
election should be nullified, suspended and
held again, largely because of a widespread
mix-up over indelible ink that was supposed
to mark voters' thumbs to prevent repeat voting.
"Any government that comes to power as a result of today's election has no credibility and no validity," said Abdul Sitar Seerat, a former cabinet minister and one of Karzai's challengers, after the remaining opposition candidates met for much of the afternoon at his home.
Originally there were 18 candidates including Karzai, but two withdrew to support him on Wednesday.
The unexpected controversy came as a shock to Afghan and international election officials, who had warned against terrorist violence at the polls by former Taliban fighters and other anti-democratic forces, but who never expected the candidates themselves to cast doubt on a process that experts had spent months preparing.
There were numerous scattered incidents of violence and anti-election plots reported during the day, but most were in remote provinces. An unprecedented deployment of nearly 100,000 Afghan and foreign security forces, who sealed off all major roads and guarded most polling centers, appeared to have staved off any major anti-election attacks.
Police said they discovered a fuel tanker truck carrying landmines and explosives in the southern city of Kandahar, and arrested three Pakistanis in it. They said the volatile cargo could have been detonated in the city, causing election-day mayhem. Interior Ministry officials said they found explosives or other dangerous items in cars throughout the capital, and arrested a group of Taliban members who were holding a clandestine meeting.
Most voters cast their ballots without difficulty and went home, unaware of the candidates' protest until long afterward. Many appeared to find the first-time experience confusing and a little intimidating, but election workers explained the procedure carefully over and over, and voters of all ages seemed eager and proud to be taking part.
"This is something Afghans have wished for deeply, and for a long time," said Gulab Niakzai, 47, a colonel in the new national army who had just voted at a high school in Kargah, a district west of Kabul. His wife Shirin, dressed in tailored black, smiled at his side.
"We want a clean government and an honest, patriotic president," Niakzai said. "Every Afghan should think very carefully about this decision, because we are building a future for our children."
On a windy highway in Wardak province south of the capital, a cluster of men and women in billowing blue veils trudged along with their children, heading toward a distant polling station. Rassool Dad, 25, a mason who recently brought his family back from long exile in Iran, carried his 9-month-old son in his arms.
"We are going to elect our president," Dad said proudly. "We want to stop the warlords and the bloodshed. We heard that the Taliban might attack polling stations, but if we were afraid we wouldn't come out of our houses."
During a day-long tour of polling sites in three provinces, a Washington Post reporter saw many instances in which polling workers mistakenly inked the voters' thumbs with black ballot-marking ink instead of purple indelible ink.
Voters expressed concern at the ease with which the black ink rubbed off, but no one at a dozen polling stations, including officially designated "agents" for various candidates, complained of deliberate fraud.
Other problems with logistics and staffing, especially the complicated arrangements made so women could vote separately, also seemed to be handled good-naturedly. In De Afghanan, a village in Wardak, a local Muslim cleric had offered his front parlor as a women's voting site, but several hours after the men's polling station opened, no female election workers had arrived from Kabul.
"We called the U.N. several times, but no one has come," said Mahmad Aziz, 60, the local election supervisor. Finally he designated a group of male elders to act as go-betweens so local women could vote without being seen.
"We want everyone to be able to vote freely," he said. "We took an oath that none of us would put pressure on anyone."
Around him, a long line of men squeezed into a dark stone village classroom, clutching their voter registration cards. One election worker inked their thumbs and punched a hole in their cards. Another showed them the long ballot with 18 names and tiny photographs. After the voter emerged from a small booth covered in gingham cloth, another worker took each ballot and stuffed it into a white plastic box.
Most voters said they understood that their ballot was secret, and many were shy or even cagey about expressing their preference after voting. But in many places, people said they planned to vote for Karzai, saying he was an honest man and had worked hard for the country. Karzai was named interim president in late 2001 under a U.N.-sponsored democratization process that has already advanced through two national assemblies, a new constitution and voter registration.
Despite the careful procedures, opposition
candidates said there was ample room for fraud,
especially because so many voters' thumbs were
not marked with indelible ink. They alleged
that large numbers of people had voted several
times, and that government officials had pressured
some to vote for Karzai.
"We have received reports of people voting
10 and 15 times," said Humayun Shah Assefy,
a lawyer who is running for president.
"Under these conditions, elections have
no meaning. We do not want a boycott,
we want a postponement, and we want
better supervision."
To some extent, the suspicion of multiple voting was exacerbated by the very success of the voter registration drive. Initially, experts predicted perhaps 7 million to 8 million people would register, but the final number was more than 10.5 million. Critics said many people had registered several times, but international and Afghan officials said there was little that could be done about it.
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