Reply #4: Cloud hangs over legitimacy of Afghanistan election result (The Guardian)

[IndianaGreen]

How come our capitalist press is silent about Karzai's stolen election? Where are those that condemned the stolen election in Iran? Could it possibly be that if it is "our guy" that steals an election, we look the other way, and that no matter how fair an election is, if the "wrong guy" wins we will condemn it as stolen? :eyes:

Don't forget that Karzai brought the mass murderer warlord Rashid Dostum to help him win the election.

Cloud hangs over legitimacy of Afghanistan election result

• Rival accuses leader of 'stealing' the ballot
• Government supporters claim landslide victory

Jon Boone in Kabul and Daniel Nasaw in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 August 2009 18.40 BST

Hamid Karzai will face a crisis of legitimacy and a legal challenge to his re-election if he is proclaimed the outright winner of Afghanistan's presidential ballot on Tuesday, opponents and an UN official warned today, as his chief rival accused him of "stealing" the election.

In a withering attack on an election process that Afghanistan's international backers are desperate should be seen as legitimate, Abdullah Abdullah pinned the blame on Karzai and his team for what he claimed were fraudulent results emerging from the country's southern and eastern regions. He told the Guardian: "It was led by Mr Karzai. He knew. He knew that without this he cannot win, about that I have no doubt in my mind."

Karzai's supporters, who have been collating their own results from individual polling stations, are convinced that the president has won a landslide victory with more than 50% of the vote. Some are predicting he may get as much as 70%.

But a senior UN official warned there would be "no real legitimacy if Karzai claims to have won on the first round". He said: "If the international community say it is all wonderful, they lose further credibility and are associated with an illegitimate government. And if they say it was fraud then their publics will say 'why are we there then?' Neither way is it a good result for Afghanistan."

The prospect of a protracted post-election dispute is an unhappy one for the US and its main partners in the Isaf force in Afghanistan, Britain, Canada and Germany, who are eager to declare the vote acceptable and avoid the uncertainty, delay and confrontation that could aggravate an already parlous security situation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/23/afghanistan-elections-hamid-karzai