Runoff ordered in Afghan election marred by fraud

Runoff ordered in Afghan election marred by fraud

news.yahoo.com

KABUL – Afghanistan's election commission Tuesday ordered a Nov. 7 runoff in the disputed presidential poll after a fraud investigation dropped incumbent Hamid Karzai's votes below 50 percent of the total. Karzai accepted the finding and agreed to a second round vote.

The announcement came two months to the day after the first round vote and follows weeks of political uncertainty at a time when Taliban strength is growing.

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This is good news. I was worried that they would wait longer than that for the run off or that Karzai wouldn't accept that the election results were fraudulant. According to the article, the election commission says that he got 49.7% of the vote. He was just under the 50% needed to prevent a run off.

Now here's hoping that the Afghani's aren't afraid to go vote a second time after all the attacks and fraud the first time around.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 20-10-2009 by Jenna]

The article has been updated:

In his own remarks, Karzai emphasized the need for security.

"I hope that the international community and the Afghan government and all others concerned will take every possible measure to provide security to the people so that when they vote, that vote is not called a fraud," Karzai said.

The August poll was characterized by Taliban attacks on polling stations and government buildings that killed dozens of people. In some areas, militants cut off the ink-marked fingers of people who had voted.

Taliban threats dampened turnout in the first round and many say even fewer people would come out in a runoff. This time, there will be no provincial elections on the same ballot to increase turnout.

This is what worries me. People were killed and had fingers cut off for voting in this past election. Personally, having a finger cut off would make me think twice about voting again though I'm not sure it would prevent me from doing it anyway. I just hope that the Afghani's don't allow themselves to be intimidated and go vote in the run-offs.