Afghanistan releases ‘final’ election results

Afghanistan’s main electoral body on Wednesday released what were billed as the final results of September’s trouble-plagued parliamentary election. But as with so many things here, final doesn’t mean over with.

Results for one of the country’s 34 provinces -- Ghazni, south of the capital, Kabul -- were withheld because violence, intimidation and fraud were considered so rampant that election officials decided a fair tally was impossible.

Even as the Independent Election Commission was announcing the rest of the results, supporters of some candidates who had been disqualified days earlier by a watchdog body staged angry street demonstrations in Kabul and elsewhere. No serious violence was immediately reported.

Meanwhile, confusion reigned over a claim by the country’s attorney general, Mohammad Ishaq Aloko -- whose jurisdiction in electoral matters is unclear -- that he had ordered the suspension of two senior election officials while they were investigated on possible criminal charges.

In the Sept. 18 vote, about 2,500 candidates competed for seats in the wolesi jirga, or lower house of parliament. Over the past year, lawmakers had increasingly challenged some policies of President Hamid Karzai. It was not immediately clear whether supporters of the president would dominate the incoming chamber.

Election officials said they would decide soon whether to hold a re-vote in Ghazni, where the insurgency has grown markedly stronger over the past year.

According to preliminary results, the Ghazni vote had resulted in a sweep by candidates who were members of the minority Hazara ethnic group, even though the province is mainly Pashtun.

Election observers said that suggested that most voters were too intimidated to come to the polls, or that it was too dangerous to open balloting centers or that large-scale fraud had taken place.

Western officials had hoped the parliamentary contest would help excise some of the taint of the presidential vote held 13 months earlier. Karzai ultimately emerged victorious, but nearly one-third of the ballots were tossed out due to fraud, and Karzai’s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of a runoff race insisting that the balloting would not be fair.

Despite Western-mentored efforts to improve voting procedures and oversight, voting irregularities also were widespread in the September vote. Thousands of fraud complaints poured in, resulting in the long delay in releasing results.

The Western response to Afghanistan’s election woes has so far been muted. Diplomats and international organizations for the most part offered congratulations to the country for managing to hold a vote at all amid the burgeoning insurgency, and said it would be for the Afghan people to decide whether the results were valid.

laura.king@latimes.com