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Ballots for Afghan elections were pre-marked for Karzai: The Guardian |
Some ready-to-cast ballot papers
for Afghanistan's presidential election were pre-marked for Hamid Karzai, footage
obtained by the Guardian has revealed. Ballot papers pre-marked for Hamid Karzai
that were seized by monitors. The ballots appear to be stamped with the monitors'
seal and ready to cast. The monitors filmed then destroyed the papers to stop
them being used. The footage was taken by two election monitors who inspected
a book of 100 ballot papers, which were still stitched together, as they were
intended to arrive at the polling station in rural Afghanistan. "But, 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," the report
says. "We found it the day after the elections. They were trying to put it in
one of the [ballot] 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," the paper quoted one monitor, as saying. Numerous other
evidences have surfaced not only in support of the vote-rigging theory, but also
to suggest that the idea of the election being fair was laughable in Afghanistan.
An election official showed a photograph of a man marking a big pile of ballot
papers in the name of Hamid Karzai. Another picture shows a pile of election ID
cards spread in front of an unidentified man wearing black shoes, the report says.
"This man brought 120 cards and he used each of them to vote three times. I thought
I would give the pictures to the election committee. But they were all working
for Karzai," said the official, who fled to Kabul fearing that he might have been
caught taking pictures. "Everyone was cheating in my polling station. Only 10
per cent voted, but they registered 100 per cent turnout. One man brought five
books of ballots, each containing 100 votes, and stuffed them in the boxes after
the elections were over," he added. According to the paper, the vote had come
down to a battle of budgets, with agents for both Karzai and his rival, Abdullah
Abdullah, giving money in exchange for votes. "Karzai's men were paying 1,000
Afghani per family and Abdullah's were paying 1,500 Afghani," villagers of Ahmad
Aba district in Paktiya region said. |
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