World

Karzai defends Afghan election's integrity

by Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke | September 17, 2009 at 02:50 am

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It could take weeks before the final results of the Afghanistan election could be known. A UN backed election commission has ordered 10% of ballots to be recounted.

Provisional results of the election have been released and at this stage Hamid Karzai has a 54% majority. This could change with the recount and President Karzai could still be forced into a run-off election. Both the Karzai and Abudullah Abdullah camp have accused each other of election fraud.

Amidst the controversy, President Karzai said that despite some government officials being bias toward him, he believes in the integrity of the election.

In separate story Milan Sturgis describes how different expectations were for Pakistan and the Afghan president in a Tale of Two Presidents.

It has been suggested that some form of power sharing take place in Afghanistan. This has been rejected by both camps, although Hamid Karzai has stated that he could use Abdullah Abdullah in his government under him.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's president conceded Thursday some government officials had been biased toward him in last month's election but defended the integrity of the vote, saying he had so far seen little proof of fraud.

President Hamid Karzai was speaking day after full preliminary results showed him with 54 per cent of the vote, comfortably above the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a runoff with leading challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

Fraud investigations and recounts of suspicious ballots must finish before results are finalized, a process likely to take weeks. Observers have said enough votes are questionable that Karzai could still be forced into a runoff.