[Al Jazeera] Afghan election authorities have dumped 1.3 million votes, 23 per cent of the 5.6 million ballots cast in last month's parliamentary election, officials have said.In a reasonable world that'd be enough to invalidate the "election."
Don't give San Fran Nan any ideas ...
"The valid vote is 4,265,347, and the invalid vote is around 1,300,000," Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Independent Election Commission, said on Wednesday.
Many observers had hoped that the parliamentary elections would show the Afghan government's commitment to reforming its corrupt bureaucracy.
"These elections will do little to alter Afghanistan's system of patronage politics, and will certainly not alter the balance of power," a Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, said.
The official said the parliamentary poll represented "politics as usual, just as corrupt and just as violent as last year".
... and just as corrupt, just as violent as next year...
The 2009 presidential vote was widely criticised by the country's international donors amid allegations of electoral fraud - included ballot stuffing and voter intimidation - that invalidated 1.5 million votes, mostly for Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai, the Afghan president.
Progress in doubt
The elections are part of a process intended to develop the country's nascent political system, which is seen as rife with cronyism.
The current parliament is stacked with former warlords and power brokers, and many of the candidates in September's election have ties to Afghanistan's old elite.
Afghanistan lacks political parties and parliamentary blocs form according to ethnic or geographical alliances. But despite weak parties, powerful patronage networks, and entrenched corruption, the Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament) acts as a check on the power of President Hamid Karzai.
Poll breakdown
Last month, more than 2,500 candidates stood for 249 seats in the the Wolesi Jirga. But authorities disqualified the results from 2,543 polling stations, out of 3,345 stations investigated following the September 18 election.
In addition, suspicious candidates have been identified based on allegations of possible fraud. "224 candidates are now being referred to the Electoral Complaints Commission," Al Jizz's Sue Turton, reporting from Kabul, said.
She said it would take another three weeks for the commission to look into the complaints. "But people are saying the [Independent Election Commission] has done its job," Turton said.