New evidence of widespread fraud in Afghanistan election uncovered

[spanone]

The shaky footage shows two election monitors inspecting a book of 100 ballot papers that are still stitched together, as they were intended to arrive at the polling station in rural Afghanistan. But something is wrong; instead of being pristine, ready for the voter to make his or her mark, each paper bears a large blue tick next to the name of one candidate: Hamid Karzai.

As the monitors flick through the pad, the back of the ballots clearly show the authorisation stamp of election monitors, validating them as votes ready to be put in the ballot box and counted.

"We found it the day after the elections," one of the monitors in the footage told me. "They were trying to put it in one of the boxes but didn't have time, so we took it home and filmed it. If we had given it back to the election committee they would have used it again, so we burned it, but filmed it to protect ourselves if they come and threaten us."

The video footage is just part of a picture of widespread fraud in the Afghan election uncovered by the Guardian.

On Thursday, President Karzai told a news conference: "I believe firmly, firmly in the integrity of the election and the integrity of the Afghan people, and the integrity of the government in that process." But evidence given by a number of officials and voters tells a very different story, one in which the selling of votes to presidential candidates was common and the idea of the election being fair was laughable.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/18/afghanistan-election-fraud-evidence/print

[LakeSamish706]

1. Me thinks that Karzai and associates learned well from the Bush Admin.

How to steal an election 101 was probably high on Karzai's list of to-do's.

[Truth2Tell]

2. Recommended.

Clearly we need to cut off all Federal funding to Afghanistan.