NYT: Tribal Leaders Say Karzai’s Team Forged 23,900 Votes

[kpete]

By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: September 1, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — Just a week before this country’s presidential election, the leaders of a southern Afghan tribe called Bariz gathered to make a bold decision: they would abandon the incumbent and local favorite, Hamid Karzai, and endorse his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Mr. Abdullah flew to the southern city of Kandahar to receive the tribe’s endorsement. The leaders of the tribe, who live in a district called Shorabak, prepared to deliver a local landslide.

..........................

At the end of the day, 23,900 ballots were shipped to Kabul, Mr. Bariz said, with every one marked for President Karzai.

“Not a single person in Shorabak District cast a ballot — not a single person,” Mr. Bariz said in an interview here in the capital, where he and a group of tribal elders came to file a complaint. “Mr. Karzai’s people stuffed all the ballot boxes.”

more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/world/asia/02fraud.html?th&emc=th

[avaistheone1]

1. I bet he falsified even more than that.

Karzai is a crook.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. voter supression was violent and powerful

Taliban ran people off from the polls, women stayed home, men voted for their women "by proxy".
Sunni Arab militias were engaged to help reduce violence in Iraq

Many Women Stayed Away From the Polls In Afghanistan
Fear, Tradition, Apathy Reversed Hopeful Trend
Threats from insurgents on election day in Afghanistan, combined with fear, tradition, apathy and poor planning, kept many Afghan women from going to the polls and exercising recently-won rights, election monitors and women's activists say.
Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, August 31, 2009
Although no official turnout figures are available and the election results are not yet final, election monitoring groups and political activists from Taliban-plagued provinces report that in dozens of insecure districts, almost no women voted. Nationwide, they say, women's participation was much lower than in either the 2004 presidential or 2005 parliamentary elections.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/30/AR2009083002774.html?hpid=topnews

Afghans turn to the Twitterverse for election
KABUL — Afghans turned to the Twitterverse to share news of Taliban intimidation at the polls and voter turnout in the presidential election, even as the country was just trying to keep electricity running and attacks at bay.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jdo7zb-_JrJh4e2TQ6WT7V3ai2xgD9A6R7LG0

Afghanistan. Bogus ballots and Britney: fraud threatens Afghan poll
Aug 19. Voter registration cards are for sale by the handful on the streets of Afghan cities and villages. Somebody even registered U.S. pop star Britney Spears to vote in Thursday's presidential election -- copies of her card were widely emailed and, for a while, pinned up in a Kabul hotel bar.
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Afghanistan-Pakistan/idUSTRE57I1SZ20090819

Afghanistan. Ballots And Bullets For Afghanistan
Ann Jones: The Fear Among Many Locals Is That The Fix Is In
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/19/opinion/main5253055.shtml

Afghanistan On eve of elections, fraud concerns loom (and video)
18 August 2009 A day before polls are set to open across Afghanistan, there are widespread fears that the precarious security situation will provide a smokescreen for election fraud, which could benefit the incumbent
http://www.france24.com/en/20090818-fraud-concerns-on-eve-elections-afghanistan-campaigns

Afghanistan hires 10,000 tribesmen for security at polling stations in presidential election. August 11th ...The hired guns highlight attempts by authorities to bolster security in Afghanistan’s insurgency-hit provinces but also underscore a renewed focus on raising tribal militias to deal with the growing Taliban threat just as Sunni Arab militias were engaged to help reduce violence in Iraq.
http://blog.taragana.com/n/afghanistan-hires-10000-tribesmen-for-security-at-polling-stations-in-presidential-election-136486/