Afghanistan/France

Second round of voting possible after fraud report publishes findings

Article published on the 2009-10-19 Latest update 2009-10-19 13:06 TU

Hamad Karzai election poster

Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission has ordered the scrapping of a certain percentage of the votes of each candidate in August's presidential poll This means Hamid Karzai failed to get the 50 per cent plus one of the votes needed for him to win the election outright.

The EEC said it found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud" at the polling stations. It has ordered the Independent Election Commission, the IEC, which is the final arbiter of the election to invalidate ballots from 210 polling stations.

Correspondent Jonathan Boon in Kabul says the report does not mean there will be definitely be a second round of voting.

"If it does go to a second round a number of tricky logistical problems will have to be dealt with," he says. "These include trying to organise elections as winter sets in."

Boon add that it's not clear whether Karzai will accept the findings of the ECC. 

"The next question is whether the IEC which is viewed as being heavily partisan to Karzai will accept this fraud enquiry by the ECC which is mainly run by foreigners."

The report's findings come two months after the 20 August presidential election which had been tainted by widespread allegations of fraud.