Post by Freedom on Sept 1, 2009 7:18:02 GMT -5
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
www.edmontonsun.com/news/world/2009/09/01/10698256-sun.html
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News World
Afghan vote fraud probed
KANDAHAR -- The sheer volume of accusations of ballot box stuffing, fraud and voter intimidation in the Afghan presidential election may be disappointing but it doesn't come as a surprise to the head of the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission.
Grant Kippen, a Canadian as well as the man who chaired the commission during the previous election, said he expected a lot of complaints -- again.
The commission has received more than 2,000 complaints from all of the candidates in the Aug. 20 vote.
"The ones that we have given top priority -- some 613 complaints -- are the ones we're focusing on at the moment," Kippen said yesterday in a telephone interview. "They have the potential to change election results.
"If we investigate a complaint that involves ballot stuffing at a polling station level and determine in fact that has happened, then one of the sanctions we can effect is to exclude that ballot box from being counted."
Kippen said the deadline for complaints has passed.
There have been complaints throughout Afghanistan but the lion's share comes from the south where the Taliban has a strong hold on the public psyche and voting was discouraged by the insurgents.
Results have been coming in dribs and drabs, with incumbent President Hamid Karzai edging closer to the 50% he needs to clinch a victory over his chief challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. The final results are expected around the middle of September.
Meanwhile, the top commander in Afghanistan said the U.S. and NATO need a new strategy to defeat the Taliban. Gen. Stanley McChrystal delivered a classified assessment that is widely seen as the groundwork for a fresh request to add more American forces next year.
McChrystal said the war is winnable, but his report is expected to be a blunt appraisal of the Taliban's increasing tactical prowess and diminishing popular support in Afghanistan for both the foreign-led war effort and the fragile, corruption-riddled central government.
"The situation in Afghanistan is serious," McChrystal said, and success "demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort."
McChrystal did not ask for more troops but is expected to do so in a separate request in a couple of weeks, two NATO officials said.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the Obama administration will look closely at the "resources requests" expected to flow from the assessment.