Probe voids thousands of Karzai votes

       Fraud investigators threw out hundreds of thousands of votes for President Hamid Karzai in the country's disputed August election,according to a report released yesterday.
       The findings set the stage for a run-off between him and his top challenger.
       It was unclear, however, whether the Independent Election Commission (IEC) would accept the findings of the UN-backed fraud panel and announce a run-off. Mr Karzai's spokesman said it was too soon to make a judgment based on the figures released by the panel.
       Two international officials familiar with the investigation said that the findings showed Mr Karzai falling below the 50% threshold needed to avoid a run-off with his chief rival,former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
       Preliminary results released last month showed Mr Karzai winning the Aug 20 election with more than 54%. However, allegations of widespread fraud prompted the investigation by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission and held up a final proclamation of a winner.
       Investigators did not release enough figures to allow for an independent judgment, but it was clear that hundreds of thousands of Karzai votes were voided.
       In all, more than five million votes were cast in the election.
       "I don't think we can make any judgment based on the figures announced today," Karzai campaign spokesman Waheed Omar said.
       That has raised fears that the Karzai-influenced election commission may refuse to call for a run-off - further delaying formation of a government that the US believes is needed to help combat the growing Taliban insurgency.
       A protracted crisis could also lead to political unrest.
       Hundreds of Karzai supporters protested in the south over the weekend,calling for the electoral commission to release results quickly and saying they will reject a second round.
       They gathered in the main street of the southeastern city of Spin Boldak on Sunday, shouting "We want the result!" and "Karzai is our leader!"
       Ali Shah Khan, a tribal leader from the area, said the protesters believed the August vote was fair and that foreigners were delaying the results to unseat Mr Karzai.
       "We know they don't want President Karzai because he is a strong leader and he is working only for the people of Afghanistan," Mr Khan said."The foreign countries want a weak leader for Afghanistan. After that they can do whatever they want."
       The White House says President Barack Obama will not send more US troops until a credible government is in place.
       French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and US Senator John Kerry,chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, were in Kabul last weekend urging the Afghans to resolve the standoff quickly.
       Abdullah campaign spokesman Fazel Sancharaki said the UN-backed panel "is under threat" from Mr Karzai. He alleged the president was urging the IEC not to accept the results of the fraud probe.

AFGAHN AUTHORITIES DRAG THEIR FEET ON VOTE FRAUD

       Two months after Afghans voted in controversial presidential elections, authorities were still wrangling yesterday over whether another poll is needed amid tense negotiations between rival candidates.
       Officials in Kabul said Afghan politicians and their international backers have been involved in days of vigorous horse-trading in the hope of averting a run-off, which many fear could further destabilise the fragile country.
       Afghanistan's August-20 election has been overshadowed by allegations of fraud, mostly against President Hamid Karzai, including findings by EU observers that one quarter of all votes, or 1.5 million, were suspicious.
       Karzai leads preliminary results with around 55 per cent of the vote. He needs 50 per cent plus one vote to be declared the winner.
       His main rival Abdullah Abdullah has around 28 per cent.
       An official announcement - winner or run-off - will be made by the Independent Election Commission (IEC), widely regarded as pro-Karzai, which acts on the orders of the UN-approved Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).
       ECC officials had been expected to deliver their roders, based on the finding of investigations into ballot-stuffing, to the IEC yesterday. The IEC is constitutionally bound to obey the orders. But officials, including an IEC source, said only informal meetings had taken place in which ECC members explained how they reached their conclusions.
       The officials said the ECC could make its decision public as early as yesterday, but the IEC is now expected to delay its announcement for some days.
       "The issue is that the IEC will not accept that ECC decisions and they are heading for a head-on collision and political chaos," another diplomat said, adding: "This means further delays in the final sresult."

Ben Bongo's poll win confirmed

       Gabon's Constitutional Court rejected on Monday challenges launched by the opposition to Ali Ben Bongo's victory in an August presidential election, paving the way for Mr Ben Bongo to replace his father as president.
       "The election of Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba as president of the Republic of Gabon is confirmed," Court President Marie Madeleine Mborantsuo, said in a decision read out on state television on Monday evening.
       According to the final tally, Mr Ben Bongo scored 41.8% of the vote.

Electorate votes in test for Medvedev's pledge to boost democracy

       President Dmitry Medvedev faced a test of his pledge to boost Russian democracy yesterday when polls opened for 30 million voters in regional elections the opposition say have been rigged.
       Mr Medvedev has promised to break the near-monopoly of ruling party United Russia over the political system. Critics say democracy was undermined by his predecessor Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, and the opposition says the situation has deteriorated since Mr Medvedev came to power in May 2008.
       "Political competition is practically zero," said Liliya Shibanova, head of independent poll watchdog Golos."Medvedev says we need competition,we need a multi-party system, but election results show the exact opposite."
       Mayoral, regional and district elections are being held in 76 of Russia's 83 regions, but the opposition has been scathing of elections to the Moscow council. Six parties were registered for yesterday's Moscow vote, but the only posters in the city are for United Russia.
       "Everything is decided in advance,"said teacher Jay Komisarzhevskaya."I haven't voted for 10 years."

Unruffled Angela Merkel stays above election fray

       Maybe this is why Chancellor Angela Merkel is so closed. In East Germany she learned for a long time never to show her own opinion.
       German Chancellor Angela Merkel,of the Christian Democrats (CDU),at times seems impervious to the fact that an election campaign is going on around her.
       Brushing aside criticism from political opponents and even demands within her own party to infuse energy into a lacklustre election campaign, Ms Merkel has retained her presidential calm at the helm of Europe's most populous country and largest economy.
       "Volume and insulting other people should not be the measure by which the seriousness of the election campaign should be judged," Ms Merkel said, swatting away the criticisms.
       The chancellor's popularity - which far outstrips that of her party - has remained undented by state elections this month in which the CDU suffered serious setbacks.
       In a poll conducted by ARD television,57% said they would elect Ms Merkel directly if they could, while only 28%said they would pick SPD candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
       The CDU stands to gain 35-37% of the Sept 27 vote, compared to around 23% for the Social Democrats (SPD) according to recent polls.
       Ms Merkel's CDU hopes the election will return a sufficient majority to ditch the so-called grand coalition with the SPD, in favour of a new pro-market partnership with the Free Democrats (FDP).
       Unostentatious in her sensible trouser suits and no-nonsense fringe, the chancellor's popularity stems from her quiet determination to get on with the job.
       "This humble appearance, and the fact that she doesn't stage things, that is her actual staging," said Gerd Langguth,a political scientist and biographer of Angela Merkel. At the same time, Mr Langguth says Ms Merkel's upbringing under a totalitarian East German regime may have taught her to mask her true thoughts."Maybe this is why Merkel is so closed," Mr Langguth said."In East Germany she learned for a long time never to show her own opinion."
       Angela Merkel has tried to reveal her personal side, proclaiming a love of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, and telling a German women's magazine that she writes the shopping list for her mediashy husband, quantum chemist Joachim Sauer. The daughter of a protestant priest,Angela was born near Hamburg in 1954,and moved to East Germany with her family at a time when people were fleeing in the opposite direction.
       A trained physicist, Ms Merkel did not enter politics until the age of 35,after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Within the CDU she quickly came to the attention of then-chancellor Helmut Kohl.
       The remarried, childless protestant from former East Germany stood out in the CDU's conservative, Catholic image of a party dominated by men and firmly rooted in Germany's west.
       Nevertheless,"Kohl's girl" first became minister for women and youth, then inherited the environment brief. In 2000 she was elected as the first female leader of the CDU. While Ms Merkel learned her political skills under Mr Kohl, she does not share his sense of historical imperative, Mr Langguth said.
       "She is a non-ideological, pragmatic problem solver," Mr Langguth said, adding that pathos was not Ms Merkel's style.
       What many see as Chancellor Merkel's pragmatism can also be considered opportunist. Voted in on a tax-cutting agen-da in 2005, Ms Merkel quickly adapted to the limitations of a grand coalition.Her ambitious health reform programme became a messy compromise. But the more concrete decisions of her government include a value-added tax increase,and raising the retirement age to 67.
       Internationally, Ms Merkel has gained respect, first capitalising on the 2006 Football World Cup held in Germany,then showing leadership during the country's rotating presidency of the Group of Eight (G8).
       More recently, the chancellor stood her ground during thefinancial crisis,rebuffing initial calls from the US and Japan for government bailouts to boost the German economy.
       Now the apparent rescue of German carmaker Opel, and two successive quarters of economic growth, allow Ms Merkel to argue that her government has fended off the worst of the economic crisis.
       The chancellor's demands for a tightening of international financial markets and her proposed "charter of sustainable growth" should further place her in a lead role at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the United States, just days before the German election.
       Indeed, the economy forms the lynchpin of Ms Merkel's election pledges,arguing that the need to encourage growth in the wake of the economic crisis aligns the CDU with the FDP's liberal agenda.
       "We have the strength," proclaim the CDU's election posters, above a flattering picture of Ms Merkel with a maternal smile.
       But while the CDU is relying on the popularity of its leader to bring in the vote, Ms Merkel is also likely to carry the can if her hands-off approach to the election campaign fails to pay off.
       In 2005, against the more energetic campaigner Gerhard Schroeder, Ms Merkel allowed a healthy poll lead to slip to almost a dead heat in the final days of the campaign.

Merkel assured of second term

       Chancellor Angela Merkel is virtually assured of a second term in office when Germany goes to the polls next weekend but she faces a nail-biting wait to see if she can form her preferred coalition.
       About 62 million Germans are eligible to vote on Sunday in an election that will decide who is at the helm of Europe's most populous nation and biggest economy for the next four years.
       Barring a major election-day surprise,polls show the 55-year-old Ms Merkel,a pastor's daughter from the former communist east Germany and Forbes magazine's world's most powerful woman, is a shoo-in for re-election.
       The key question to be resolved in Sunday's vote is whether in Germany's coalition-based political systemMs Merkel's centre-right Christian Demo-crats (CDU) can win enough votes to form their preferred alliance with the businessfriendly Free Democrats.
       If not, Germany is in for a second term of the "grand coalition" between the CDU and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD)-an unwieldy alliance that some analysts say has hobbled economic reform in the country.
       The latest polls put the CDU on around 36% of the votes and the Free Democrats on about 12%, just enough to scrape a razor-thin parliamentary majority. The SPD is languishing near 26%, with their preferred coalition partner the Greens on around 11%.
       "I am certain that Ms Merkel will be the next chancellor. I do not see any alternative to her. The only interesting question is, in which coalition?" said Gerd Langguth, professor of political science at Bonn University and author of a biography of Ms Merkel.
       The election follows two broadly uninspiring campaigns waged by Ms
       Merkel and her SPD rival,Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the country's 53-year-old vicechancellor and foreign minister.
       The pair, who have governed together for the past four years, have shied away from personal attacks and struggled to set themselves apart from each other as they hold joint responsibility for the administration's record.
       This was evident in their one and only live TV debate during which the polite and passionless sparring prompted one exasperated moderator to exclaim:"You two are like an old married couple."
       Voters have also struggled to separate the policies of the two main parties as their manifesto pledges differ only slightly on the key issues of the day, including Germany's involvement in Afghanistan and the financial crisis.
       Only on nuclear energy - where the CDU wants to go back on an earlier pledge to scrap the country's 17 nuclear power plants and the SPD wants to hold firm - and on wage policy are there clearly defined differences.
       "Merkel knows that if she is not confrontational, she can rely on her popularity as chancellor. She has the highest popularity ratings of any chancellor in German history," Mr Langguth said.
       The country is groggily getting off its knees after its worst recession in 60 years and output this year is poised to shrink by as much as 6%.
       So far, a programme offering firms incentives to keep workers on parttime rather than lay them off has kept a lid on unemployment, but experts see jobless lines growing rapidly in the coming months.
       In the foreign policy sphere, politicians face an increasingly uphill battle to convince the public their country needs to stay the course in the unpopular mission in Afghanistan. A more pleasant task for the new chancellor will be welcoming a host of world leaders on Nov 9 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall which paved the way to a reunited Germany.

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."