Thursday, July 24, 2014

Afghan vote recount moves at snail's pace, rival sides far apart --- (Reuters) - The dusty ballot box from the disputed Afghan presidential election was supposed to contain 550 votes. When auditors cut the seal they found barely 30 votes inside. -- Both candidates cried foul, accusing the other camp of stealing votes from a June 14 run-off presidential ballot, the results of which are still being squabbled over amid allegations of widespread vote rigging. -- "Both camps argued over one result sheet for hours," an Independent Election Commission (IEC) official told Reuters. -- Eventually a United Nations official stepped in, and told the two sides to move on and let the IEC investigate. -- Preliminary results from the election put Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, well ahead, but his rival Abdullah Abdullah rejected the result, claiming major fraud and calling the outcome a "coup" against the Afghan people. -- His supporters threatened to form a parallel government, and Afghans weary of civil war, hardline Islamist rule under the Taliban and a vicious insurgency that has struck civilians as well as soldiers began to fear the worst. --- More than 1,500 Afghan civilians have died in the insurgency during the first six months of the year, although the Taliban failed to deliver on its promise to derail the vote entirely as millions of people turned out in defiance. --- U.S. DEAL IN JEOPARDY - After direct U.S. intervention earlier this month, both sides agreed to a full recount to resolve the dispute, but with more than 23,000 ballot boxes to audit, observers worry that the process is becoming bogged down by rows over every detail. -- If that happens, talks to form a unity government just as thousands of foreign troops prepare to leave the country could drag on for months. --- AFGHANISTAN'S 'HANGING CHAD', The scrutiny mirrors the "hanging chads" of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, when George W. Bush won Florida, and in turn the presidency, by a few hundred votes after officials debated which absentee ballots and punch ballots with hanging flaps to count. -- More, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/24/us-afghanistan-election-idUSKBN0FT1WO20140724

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