Afghan vote audit to begin
The audit of all ballots cast in Afghanistan’s presidential runoff began yesterday. The audit hopes to dissolve the deadlock over who won the election June 14.
All ballots cast in the runoff -- some 8 million of them -are expected to be scrutinized for adherence to official standards, to prove or rule out ballot-stuffing and other irregularities.
Independent Election Commission spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told reporters that the counting of all eight million votes and the transportation of ballot boxes to Kabul officially started July 17. The process is expected to take several weeks.
The transport of ballots from provincial offices to the capital will be under the supervision of the international peacekeeping force ISAF, while representatives of the candidates, the media, and domestic and foreign observers will monitor the audit.
In a deal mediated by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last Saturday, rival Afghan presidential candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani agreed to a full United Nations-supervised audit of the entire runoff poll and committed to abide by the final results.
Millions of Afghans took part in the first round of presidential elections April 5, defying threats of violence by the Taliban. Election authorities claimed the turnout was even higher in the June 14 runoff vote.
Abdullah led the first round but trails in preliminary second round results that put Ghani in the lead by about one million votes.
Abdullah rejected the outcome, accusing President Hamid Karzai, election authorities and the Ghani campaign of colluding against him to rig the vote that could lead to the first peaceful transfer of power in Afghanistan’s history.