KABUL, 23 October 2004 — Hamid Karzai remained on course yesterday to win Afghanistan’s first direct presidential election, but with a quarter of the vote still to be counted, rivals were whittling down his lead to possibly force a run-off. Karzai needs to secure 51 percent of the ballot to avoid a runoff against the second placed candidate and while early returns showed him with a healthy 60 percent or more lead, that has been clawed back to 54 percent.
The counting could be finished by Monday, with election workers now largely concentrating on the 850,327 ballots returned by Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, and Iran. “Another three days and it will probably all be over,” said David Avery, chief of operations for the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body, told Reuters.
But before the election commission can declare a winner, a three-man independent panel investigating allegations of vote fraud will have to deliver its findings.
Karzai’s opponents have listed nearly 300 complaints of cheating and voting violations, the most serious of which are being investigated by the panel which was hastily formed to head off threats to refuse to recognize the result. JEMB officials believe the panel’s report will be ready by the middle of next week. But opposition candidates have already voiced doubts whether the panel would dare conclude that the legitimacy of any result had been materially affected by voting irregularities.
There has been considerable speculation that the White House would like to see a quick Karzai victory to help President George W. Bush in his own bid for re-election on Nov. 2. While Karzai has swept the ballot in provinces dominated by the majority Pushtun group — traditional rulers of the rugged, isolated country — he has fared badly in areas where ethnic minorities hold sway. Yunus Qanuni, an ethnic Tajik and former Karzai ally, is trailing in second place with just over 17 percent of the vote, but his strong showing in the resistance heartland undermines Karzai’s hopes of a broad national mandate for his five-year term.
More than 40 percent of Afghanistan’s population is estimated to be Pushtun, with Tajiks accounting for 27 percent, Hazaras 9 percent and Uzbeks 9 percent. The rest are Turkmen, Baloch and Aimak. Karzai has kept largely quiet since the Oct. 9 poll.
A prime target of remnants of the Taleban militia and their Islamist allies, he is one of the most protected heads of state in the world and has survived at least two assassination attempts.
The election cost under $200 million, of which $97 million was spent on registering some 12 million voters, though the actual turnout looks likely to be just over eight million.
