Karzai: Fraud Happens in a Young Democracy
The official results have yet to be announced for Afghanistan's presidential election, and incumbent President Hamid Karzai is facing pressure to agree to a do-over, but for his part, Karzai is pushing back against critics who claim that thousands of votes were forged to keep him in his country's top position.
The official results have yet to be announced for Afghanistan’s presidential election, and incumbent President Hamid Karzai is facing pressure to agree to a do-over, but for his part, Karzai is pushing back against critics who claim that thousands of votes were forged to keep him in his country’s top position. –KA
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...Times Online:
Mr Karzai has had tense meetings with Richard Holbrooke, the US regional envoy, who urged him to face a second round in the disputed elections, and earlier in the year with Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, who walked out of a meeting with him.
His confrontational stance has been interpreted as an attempt to curry favour with the Afghan people, who are often resentful of the 100,000 foreign troops on their soil. Mr Karzai, who swept to power after the 2001 US invasion and was elected President in 2004, has been seen as dependent on the US. He said yesterday that it was in no one’s interests for him to be an American puppet.
He also brushed off what Abdullah Abdullah, his main presidential rival, called “state-engineered” vote-rigging and told the newspaper Le Figaro that fraud was “inevitable in a budding democracy”. Dr Abdullah has warned of instability if the allegations are not addressed seriously.
This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.
Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.
Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.
Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.
Donate now.
Militants from the Islamic State group have declared war on Afghanistan's Shiites; IS claims responsibility for Friday's attack.
The agreement could see the withdrawal of all American and allied forces in the next 14 months — but it could also easily unravel.
A contested result could spark violence as supporters of presidential contestants are heavily armed, with long-standing grudges.
Since 2001, the U.S. has spent more than $103 billion on the Asian country—more than it spent on the entire European continent after World War II. And there is no end in sight for the debacle that George W. Bush began and Barack Obama continued.
Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah is leading Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan's presidential election by 11 percentage points after half of the ballots were counted.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday condemned a U.S. airstrike in an eastern border province that allegedly killed a woman and two of her children.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.