Afghan Voting Peaceful, but Fraud Alleged
KABUL, Afghanistan — Three years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghans voted in massive numbers Saturday to elect their president for the first time. But the largely peaceful poll quickly fell under a cloud of uncertainty as 15 candidates alleged irregularities and fraud and said they would deem any result illegitimate.
The dispute stemmed from the supposedly indelible ink applied to voters' thumbs to prevent them from casting ballots more than once. In many precincts, voters said, washable ink was used or indelible ink was applied improperly, allowing the marking to rub off and opening the door to repeated voting.
"It's Afghanistan's hanging chad," said Maj. Gen. Eric Olson, the operations commander for U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, who coordinated an extensive and apparently successful security operation to counter bomb plots and other attacks threatened by militants loyal to the Taliban.
The challenge to the election's legitimacy jeopardized hopes for national unity after more than two decades of war and chaos. It also could be a setback for the United States, which has 18,000 troops in Afghanistan and has invested heavily in turning the country into a democracy since invading in fall 2001.
International officials, including U.N. special representative Jean Arnault and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, sought to play down the controversy and emphasize the broad participation and near absence of violence.
Khalilzad said late Saturday that all candidates had a duty to respect the results, win or lose.
"The responsibility of all candidates is not to raise allegations of wrongdoing intended solely to paralyze the democratic process," he said. "For Afghanistan to win, the losers in the election should not undermine the achievement of the Afghan people."
Given the country's primitive infrastructure -- some villages are accessible only by mountain footpaths -- and election workers' lack of experience, ballot-counting was expected to take as long as three weeks. More than 10 million voters had registered, and enthusiastic crowds lined up at many polling stations.
But before the first ballot was cast, there was widespread expectation that the victor would be incumbent Hamid Karzai, who was chosen as interim prime minister in December 2001 by a small group of Afghans at talks in Germany, and named interim president by a national conference the following year.
- Afghan Ballot Boxes Set Aside Oct 03, 2005
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- Watching the World Decide Jan 30, 2005
