Karzai's poll office blasts EU monitors

       Afghan President Hamid Karzai's campaign team yesterday criticised EU vote monitors as "irresponsible"for announcing that up to 1.5 million ballots in last month's elections could be fraudulent.
       The European Union Election Observation Mission to Afghanistan said earlier yesterday their analysis of the August polls found almost a quarter of the votes counted so far were "suspicious", sparking the fierce reaction.
       The statement from Mr Karzai's campaign office said the announcement "is partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution".
       "The role of national and international monitors is to monitor the election process and refer their findings to the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission," it said.
       "We believe the only way we can have a legitimate result out of the current process is to allow the legal institutions to complete the process and refrain from interfering in their affairs," it added.
       Dimitra Ioannou, the head of the EU mission, said that of 1.5 million votes they identified as suspicious,1.1 million were cast for Mr Karzai, while 300,000 were for his main rival Abdullah Abdullah.
       The remainder were cast for other candidates.
       "Massive fraud was taking place at polling station level and when all these ballot boxes arrived at the tally centres,instead of being quarantined and investigated, they were accepted as good results," she said.
       Meanwhile, Nato's No 2 general in Europe says there have been achievements in Afghanistan despite aresurgence of violence.
       British General John McColl told the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe yesterday that the international community has done much since 2002 to help improve Afghans'lives.