By DPA,
Kabul : The US and the UN have increased their pressure on the Afghan government to allow a thorough review of the Aug 20 presidential election following mounting allegations of vote rigging, diplomats and news reports said Tuesday.
A Western diplomat told DPA that Western missions in Afghanistan have been growing very concerned over the widespread fraud allegations and were trying to convince President Hamid Karzai not to interfere in investigations of complaints by the Independent Election Commission.
CNN, quoting a US State Department official, said US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and UN officials met Karzai late Monday and urged him to allow the commission to investigate the allegations brought against the government by Karzai’s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
The commission was then to determine whether a second ballot was necessary if neither candidate received 50 percent of the vote.
Karzai has received 48.6 percent of votes from nearly 75 percent of polling stations tallied, the commission said Sunday. The incumbent is more than 17 points ahead of Abdullah, who garnered 31.7 percent.
Widespread allegations of fraud have marred the Western-backed election, and are likely to threaten the legitimacy of the result.
The meeting was a “shot across the bow to the Afghanistan government” to make sure the commission was free to do its job free of interference, CNN quoted one official as saying.
In a meeting between US, UN and commission officials with Abdullah’s representatives Sunday, the challenger’s side openly accused the commission of working for Karzai, an Afghan government official said.
The commission said that a provisional final result would be delayed from Monday, which was initially scheduled, to later in the week. The final certified result will not be available before Sep 17.
Both Western and government officials said there were no technical reasons for the delay, but believed it to be a stalling tactics by the commission in the hope to find a solution over the vote rigging dispute.