Bad News For Karzai: Election Complaints Commission Releases Fraud Findings

It’s official. The UN-backed Election Complaints Commission (ECC) released their findings this evening (Kabul time) and have stripped Afghan President Hamid Karzai of 1 million votes from the Aug. 20 election. That pushes Karzai to 48 percent of the electorate, below the necessary threshold to claim outright victory over Abdullah Abdullah, the runner up.

According to an ECC press release, results from 210 polling stations where discarded because the ECC found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” at the polling sites.

The ECC passed the findings on to the Afghan Independent Elections Commission (IEC) today. Afghan law requires the IEC to accept the ECC’s results and take appropriate action, in this case, starting the runoff process. The Constitution stipulates that a runoff must be held in the next two weeks.

Karzai believes that he is the outright winner and may try to influence the IEC to discard the ECC findings, in violation of Afghan law. A runoff could be avoided if a coalition government is formed between Karzai and Abdullah, though Abdullah has so far rejected peace offerings from Karzai.

Regardless, a second round of voting may prove logistically impossible, as snow is already falling in parts of the country and many roads will be soon be impassable. Afghans themselves are also worried about possible violence surrounding another vote and turnout in the runoff would likely be abysmal.

It is unclear how long the IEC will take to certify the ECC findings, though we should have some word by mid-afternoon tomorrow, local time.