By Hadi Mayar

Growing charges of rigging and fraud in the Afghan presidential election are liable to affect the credibility of the ballot, even if they fail to sway the final result.

Grant Kippen, the head of the Election Complaint Commission of Afghanistan(ECC), set up under the aegis of the United Nations, said on Sunday that the commission had received 225 complaints regarding fraud and rigging in the Aug. 20 presidential election, out of which 35 constituted high priority charges.

The ECC official said the main complaints were about ballot box tampering.

Media reports from different provinces of Afghanistan, however, spoke of violence, intimidation, use of multiple voting cards, and partiality of the election staff.

Abdullah Abdullah, the top rival of Karzai in the election, last Friday accused massive fraud in the ballot.

"My focus today is on the big fraud. Big fraud, which can have an impact on the outcome of the election," Abdullah told reporters in Kabul.

He alleged that a security forces' commander in Kandahar province, General Abdul Raziq, had used his house as a polling station and also stuffed the ballot box for Karzai, a charge rejected by the commander, who said he was on security duty while the polling process continued.

"This has to be prevented. That is critical for the survival of the process." The former Afghan foreign minister said he had no faith in the election commission, adding that the commission's chief could not deliver justice as he had himself been appointed by Karzai.

However, Abdullah said that he was going to avoid a runoff.

Under the Afghan constitution, a runoff poll is to be held, probably in October, if neither Karzai nor Abdullah gets 50 per cent votes.

Another presidential candidate, Mirwais Yasini also alleged fraud in the election.

He displayed a torn ballot sheet in front of media representatives in Kabul.

Yasini claimed he had found evidence, including samples of ballot papers containing his votes torn up and thrown away in SpinBoldak district of Kandahar.

The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, the top election monitoring group, also catalogued violations such as people using multiple voter cards and underage voting.

The group said there were widespread problems with supposedly independent election officials at polling stations trying to influence the way people voted.

One of the candidates even demonstrated in front of media representatives in Kabul as to how easily the indelible ink for marking thumbs of voters could be removed, for the purpose of multiple voting.

However, Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said allegations of vote rigging and fraud were expected, but observers should wait for the official complaints process to run its course before judging the vote's legitimacy.

"We have disputed elections in the United States. There may be some questions. That would not surprise me at all. I expect it," he told a reporter in Herat city of western Afghanistan.

"There are always rumors in Afghanistan," Holbrooke said, adding that the US government would wait for rulings from Afghanistan's monitoring bodies, the Independent Election Commission, and the complaints commission, before trying to judge the legitimacy of the vote.

Holbrooke categorically said, "The United States and the international community will respect the process set up by Afghanistan itself."

There is also criticism about the lengthy process adopted for announcing the election result.

While the preliminary results are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday, five days after the polls, the final result will be declared by the middle of next month.

However, accumulation of election results from thousands of polling stations in 34 provinces of Afghanistan, spread over a rough landscape and amid growing insurgency, is undoubtedly a time-consuming and difficult process.

Although there was fear of widespread violence and attacks on the polling days as Taliban had threatened to disrupt the process, yet barring a handful of violent attacks, the election was by and large held in a peaceful manner.

Although the election complaints commission's chief has apprehended that the growing charges of fraud could sway the final result of the election, observers do not expect the allegations to hamper the process of election result.

Election is a new phenomenon in Afghanistan and leveling of such allegations after the poll is natural in a country shattered by insurgency and warlordism.

Secondly, such allegations are also being leveled, often by defeated candidates, even in advanced democracies.

However, the allegations would certainly lower the credibility of Hamid Karzai, who is most likely to win the election, as a president elected through fair and free election.

In April, the Kremlin formally ended an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, which has experienced two bloody wars in the past 15 years.

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2009)