http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081904B.shtml

Afghan Vote Threatens Bush's Credibility
By Carol Harrington and Jared Ferrie
Toronto Star

Tuesday 17 August 2004

KABUL - With evidence mounting of plans for widespread vote-rigging in
Afghanistan's upcoming elections, U.S. experts say the controversy could
emerge as a serious liability for U.S. President George W. Bush's
re-election campaign.

After voter registration centres closed across Afghanistan on the
weekend, election officials acknowledged the number of voting cards issued
far exceeded the estimated number of eligible voters - and that the
illegal practice of multiple registrations is widespread.

"An Afghan election marred by allegations of fraud would be bad for
President Bush's overall claim of promoting democracy in the Muslim
world," said Husain Haqqani, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "In the absence of good news
from Iraq, the Bush administration needs Afghanistan as its success
story."

For months, Bush has staked his claims on a successful democratic
Afghanistan, saying it would serve as an example of how America can bring
democracy, and free and fair elections to the developing world.

"The rise of democratic institutions in Afghanistan and Iraq is a great
step toward a goal of lasting importance to the world," Bush said in a
speech in Washington last March. "We have set out to encourage reform and
democracy."

But with seven weeks to go before the Oct. 9 poll, the Star has found
the practice of multiple registrations is rife.

Observers also claim the ground work necessary for a free and fair
election - security, reconstruction and political stability - has not been
established in Afghanistan and that the U.S. hurriedly pushed the country
into elections to further its own agenda.

"The United States wants, before the November elections, to showcase a
victory of the Bush administration by proving it is possible to bring
democracy to an Islamic Third World country," said Assem Akram, an Afghan
historian and author based in Washington. "And if American voters grant
George Bush a new mandate, his administration will reproduce the same
successful model in Iraq. That is why there is so much hurry."

With scarce funds and hasty plans for rebuilding Afghanistan, some
critics aren't surprised the elections are starting to unravel in advance
of polling day. Although it will take at least a week to report the final
tally of registered voters, United Nations officials overseeing the
elections admit that more than 10 million voting cards have been issued -
surpassing the estimated 9.8 million eligible voters.

"Probably there is a lot of multiple registering," U.N. spokesperson
Manoel de Almeida e Silva said yesterday.

"This is not perfect. There will be problems. In many countries, they
have lots of problems during their first elections."

In a country where the average income is $2 a day, some Afghans who
heard that political parties and presidential candidates would pay up to
$150 for voting cards, gladly lined up at registration centres several
times to get multiple voting cards.

In separate interviews, two Afghans told the Star it was easy to obtain
more than one card. One man who registered six times, using his real name
and photograph, said U.N. election workers asked him only once if he had
previously registered. A woman said her nephew had been approached at
school numerous times to sell his laminated voting card and that she knows
a woman who obtained 40 cards while cloaked in a burqa.

The blatant violation of election rules has prompted two presidential
candidates - Latif Pedram, leader of the Congress Mili Afghanistan Party
and independent candidate, Ahmad Shah Amadzai - to call for an
investigation.

Overall, the registration process has been rife with many problems: 12
election workers were killed; Afghans confused their voter ID cards for
food rations and prescriptions; men forbade wives, sisters and daughters
from getting voting cards; and many uneducated people simply don't
understand what their first election is about. Originally scheduled for
last June, the election has twice been postponed - first due to low
registration turnout and later because of security concerns.

Jawed Ludin, a spokesperson for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai,

there could be thousands of people who have multiple cards, most whom he
believes live in cities rather than rural areas. But, he stressed, most
Afghans maintain only one card.

He insisted no one involved in Karzai's election campaign has bought
voting cards. "The president is a candidate who would never do anything
like that."

Mustafa Durani, country representative for the International Republican
Institute in Kabul, believes more than 1 million Afghans have registered
twice. But he shrugs it off.

"Illegal things happen," said Durani, whose Washington-based group is
associated with the U.S. Republican Party.

He stressed that it does not matter if someone registers one or 30

because they are only allowed one vote.

Kit Spence of the National Democratic Institute, said that after 25
years of brutal wars and oppression, it's no wonder that the country is
struggling to hold a free and fair election.

"There's going to be fraud, there's going to be mismanagement, there's
going to be people who just don't understand how the process works and
they are going to screw up," said Spence, whose group has ties to the U.S.
Democrats.

The Carnegie centre's Haqqani, however, warns that if the elections are
fraught with illegal vote-rigging activities, the U.S. and Karzai are
going to have a battle on their hands.

"Elections must be seen to be fraud-free or their legitimacy, and that
of the elected leaders, remains questionable," he said.

"The real issue is: Will the Afghan people, by and large, find the
election exercise honest and fair? And that, more than charges and
responses to them, will determine whether the elections were a success or
not."

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081904B.shtml

Afghan Vote Threatens Bush's Credibility
By Carol Harrington and Jared Ferrie
Toronto Star

Tuesday 17 August 2004