KABUL, Oct 12: Counting of votes in Afghanistan's disputed presidential election could begin as soon as Wednesday, the UN-Afghan electoral commission said on Tuesday.
The count was put on hold after opposition candidates alleged fraud and irregularities, which are to be investigated by the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) and a three-person international panel.
The formation of the international panel averted a crisis hanging over the shattered central Asian state's first exercise in democracy. "We are waiting for the green light which could come tomorrow (Wednesday) or the day after. There are papers piling up and they are ready to be counted," said David Avery, JEMB chief logistics officer.
The JEMB had called on candidates to submit their complaints by Tuesday evening, and three candidates had presented their objections well before the deadline, said Sultan Baheen, a spokesman for the JEMB.
The three were Yunus Qanooni, the chief challenger to President Hamid Karzai, ethnic Hazara warlord Mohammed Mohaqeq and Ghulam Farooq Nijrabi, he said. They were among a group of 14 candidates who Saturday called for the election to be scrapped and held again, alleging a number of irregularities, including the embarrassing discovery that indelible ink used to mark the fingers of those who had voted could be washed off.
Avery said some of the 24,377 ballot boxes were being transported to eight regional counting stations from polling sites in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and in some centres ballots were stacked and ready to be counted.
Stuffed ballot boxes were still trickling in from remote corners of the rugged land by helicopter and donkey. Eight people were stranded in a remote area after their UN helicopter developed engine trouble and made an emergency landing while on a trip to pick up ballot boxes, a UN spokesman said.
Nobody was injured in the incident, but the three crew members and five passengers were stranded in the snow in the Wakan corridor in north-eastern Badakhshan province, Manoel de Almeida e Silva told a news conference.
Acceptance of the result by Qanooni and other candidates was important to provide legitimacy for the future government, said Vikram Parekh, senior Afghan analyst for the International Crisis Group.
If they did not, there would be a danger of military commanders blocking the drive to disarm their private militias, and failing to recognize appointments by the central government, he said. -AFP