Afghan tribal leaders call for Karzai to quit after detailing election fraud

James Hider

September 1, 2009

In a crowded conference hall in Kabul, hundreds of angry tribal elders and local officials from southern Afghanistan gathered today to protest against what they dubbed massive electoral fraud that robbed entire districts of their votes and allocated them to the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai.

In a string of searing testimonies, community leaders told of how villages that had been too terrified to vote because of Taleban threats, of mysteriously produced full ballot boxes, and with most of the votes cast for Mr Karzai, often by his own men or tribal leaders loyal to him.

Hamidullah Tokhy, a tribal elder from Kandahar province in the south, whose governor is Mr Karzai’s brother, said: "How is it that in a district which a governor can only visit once every two years, where it’s too dangerous for the police to go, where even Nato can’t fly, how come there were 20,000 votes collected?"

The meeting was chaired by Abdullah Abdullah, the main rival to Mr Karzai in the June 20 elections, which an increasing number of Western observers and local officials say have been fatally compromised by evidence of systematic voter fraud.

Mr Abdullah, trailing in partial results already released, swore to defend the rights of voters and pledged he would not to accept any position in government with Mr Karzai, ruling out hopes of a compromise government of national unity. He said that he was having to urge calm on outraged victims of the apparent fraud, as some called for mass protests or even armed resistance.

A day before international envoys, including Richard Holbrooke from the United States and Sherard Cowper Coles for the UK, were due to meet in Paris to discuss the possible outcomes of the elections, a picture emerged of large swaths of the country falling foul of electoral manipulation by the Government.

Abdulkayam Balets, a grey-bearded and turbaned elder who had been in charge of a polling station in Shurawaq, in the southern province of Kandahar, said no ballot boxes reached his facility. They were instead sent to the district office, where they were stuffed with votes for Mr Karzai by members of his party.

"We want Karzai to resign and an interim government installed, then we can have a free election that he can’t manipulate by force," he said.

Fazel Mohammed had a polling centre set up in his house in the same area, and confirmed all the ballot boxes were sent to the Shurawaq district office. "There were 30 people in there, voting for Hamid Karzai. I told them, 'This is not right, but they said 'We’ve got the guns and power, that’s why we’re doing it,’" he told The Times.

Haji Abdul Manan, an elder from Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, where British forces have been engaged in heavy fighting with the Taleban, said that most people had been too scared to venture out on election day. "In all the districts there was fraud. Nobody could vote, but the ballot boxes were full of votes for Hamid Karzai," he said.

Earlier, speaking on the podium, Mr Manan had called for a violent response to the fraud, a sign that disenchantment with the polls could further undermine Afghanistan’s already bloody political landscape. "I implore military resistance. I swear to God, if an Islamic government, a religious government, does not take office we're against it," he said. "The Americans are entering our houses. Our sons are being killed," he added.

Isatullah, an election official in Paktia, just south of Kabul, told The Times by telephone that bodyguards of a powerful tribal leader had shown up at his polling centre on motorbikes and cast around 60 ballots each for Mr Karzai in the ballot boxes. Officials were too afraid to stop them, he said.

Mr Abdullah said that he would not drop his protests against vote-rigging, although he urged calm on his people, amid fears that massive demonstrations could degenerate into the bloodshed that marked the anti-government protests in Iran this summer.

"My main concern today is that there is a lot of pressure from the people on me [to hold] demonstrations. Kandahar wants to do demonstrations. Khost wants to do demonstrations. Ghazni wants to do demonstrations. And I have to stop them," he said. "I ask them for calm, I ask them for patience."

"I still hope the Electoral Complaints Commission will be able to deal with this, but finally, I will not accept the outcome decided by this massive fraud," he said as he left the meeting.