Afghans wait as rigging charges delay new govt

       Dusty ballot boxes sit in warehouses across Afghanistan, with monitors worrying that a quarter of the votes locked inside could be fraudulent,most of them cast for incumbent President Hamid Karzai.
       Despite allegations that vote-rigging was massive and widespread, most of the plastic boxes remain firmly sealed as electoral bodies squabble over how to resolve the crisis,leaving Afghanistan in deadlock.
       One month after Afghans voted in their second presidential election, there is little sign that the nation embroiled in a war against Taliban insurgents and in desperate need of reconstruction will have a leader named any time soon.
       The UN-backed arbiter the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has identified just over 2,500 polling stations out of 24,183 that opened on Aug 20 where "clear and convincing evidence of fraud" merits a recount and audit.
       But the Independent Election Commission (IEC)- accused of being stacked with Karzai cronies - says such an audit would take six weeks, and are urging an alternative to prevent a prolonged political crisis.
       "The concern we raised to the ECC decision is that it includes all 34 provinces, and it will take at least one-and-a-half months,"Daoud Ali Najafi, IEC chief electoral officer,said.
       With all the votes counted, Mr Karzai looks on track for re-election with nearly 55% of the vote, his nearest rival Abdullah Abdullah trailing with 27.8%. Turnout was a meagre 38.7%.
       The ECC is now walking a delicate tightrope, analysts say, scrambling to come up with a plan to pacify the IEC, other candidates, and international backers of the poll who insist that they will not be party to any whitewash.
       "If they don't do the recount, if they don't honour their own instructions, Abdullah will reject the result," said Haroun Mir,of Afghanistan's Centre for Research and Policy Studies, warning of looming "political confrontation".
       European Union election monitors last week said that they had identified 1.5 million suspicious ballots - 1.1 million of them cast for Mr Karzai - which merited further investigation. That amounts to a quarter of votes cast.
       If the ECC goes ahead with a recount and throws out a significant number of ballots from the 2,500 polling stations, the figures could push Mr Karzai below the threshold needed for victory, sparking a run-off with Mr Abdullah.
       The worry is that any second round would have to be held within two months, before harsh winter snows blanket parts of Afghanistan and make the logistics of another vote impossible until the spring.
       Mr Najafi said the IEC had done its job and was now awaiting guidance from the ECC on how best to carry out any recount.
       "Everything is gone from our hands," he said.
       ECC chairman Grant Kippen was not available for comment, but has said in the past that the body wanted to complete their job "as quickly as possible".
       Mr Karzai has denied any massive voterigging and says he will accept the outcome of ECC and IEC investigations.
       But the incumbent already looks to be on a collision course with his international backers, with his campaign office responding furiously to the EU reports of "massive fraud".
       What the ECC is struggling to avoid, Mr Mir said, is being seen as a foreign meddler in Afghanistan's internal affairs. Three of its five commissioners are Westerners, and already the knives are being sharpened.
       "It is not justifiable that in a national commission there are foreigners," Nasrullah Stanakzai, a Kabul University law professor,told a panel discussion."This commission does not know Afghanistan."
       So far, the ECC has been carrying out investigations based on complaints it received directly, already a painstaking process. The UN said yesterday that an "electoral expert" had arrived in Kabul to assist with the recount.
       The official "is advising the IEC and the ECC on how to conduct the partial recount in a timely fashion with integrity so that the final outcome reflects the will of the people",UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said.
       He would not name the official, but did not deny a report in London's Sunday Telegraph that he is Carlos Valenzuela, a Colombian with experience of controversial elections who was in Afghanistan during 2005 polls.
       "He will be advising the IEC on how to sample polling stations where complaints have been made so that we can speed up the investigation process," Mr Siddique said.
       Sitting on broken chairs and surrounded by dusty ballot boxes in a Kabul warehouse,ECC staff examine suspicious ballot boxes,looking for indications of fraud such as unfolded ballots or a tranche of papers all bearing similar marks for one candidate.
       "We have been doing this in Kabul for two weeks so far," said Dan Murphy, a technical adviser to the ECC."We have absolutely no idea how long it's going to take."