Afghanistan’s Election Result Hinges on a Squabble-Prone Audit --- KABUL, Afghanistan — Seemingly endless squabbles are interrupted by full-scale shouting matches. Campaign aides mutter suspiciously about what foreign visitors might be up to. And ballot boxes are piling up, waiting to be cracked open and examined for signs of fraud. -- In two spartan, stifling warehouses on the edge of Kabul, hundreds of Afghans, Americans and Europeans are engaged in a last-ditch attempt to salvage an acceptably democratic result from an election dispute that has been tumbling toward a street fight, or worse. -- They are auditing all of the roughly eight million ballots cast in last month’s presidential runoff, trying to separate fraud from fact. But a week into the process, the audit has engendered little confidence, and is already desperately behind schedule. -- Only 4.5 percent of the roughly 22,000 ballot boxes had been examined by Wednesday. Each day has seemed to yield some new dispute or confusion that has put on the brakes. Does writing “insh’allah” — God willing — next to the name of a candidate on a ballot constitute a legitimate vote? Is it proper for campaign representatives to move between tables, urging colleagues to argue harder? And who was that tall, bearded foreigner with no badge? --- On Wednesday, the audit was suspended outright for the second time in seven days so that Afghan and Western officials and representatives of the rival campaigns could hash out the rules under which the auditing is supposed to be conducted — rules that were supposed to have been established a week ago. Western and Afghan officials said this should allow the audit to resume Thursday at a speedier pace. -- In the balance is an election that opened almost four months ago with the encouraging sight of millions of Afghans turning out to vote despite bad weather and the threat of Taliban violence. -- With the American troop withdrawal looming, and worries about Afghanistan’s long-term stability, international officials had hoped for a widely accepted result that would give democracy a boost and help cement a positive legacy for the long and costly Western involvement here. --- “Chaotic” seems to have emerged as the description of choice among Western observers who are trying to be diplomatic about the audit. Among those with less discretion, the word “mess,” coupled with various adjectives, has been more common. -- On Tuesday, for instance, two staff members from rival campaigns almost came to blows, shouting and pointing in each other’s face only moments before Ambassador James B. Cunningham and the American special envoy here, James F. Dobbins, arrived for a tour of the audit warehouses. -- Down the middle of each building is a wide walkway separating two parallel rows of plastic tables and chairs. At each table, Afghan election officials, international observers and agents from both campaigns are tasked with opening ballot boxes and looking for signs of fraud. -- It is laborious work that is made even harder by the suffocating heat inside the warehouses, which are little more than bare aluminum sheets wrapped over frames anchored to concrete floors. There is no air-conditioning, there are precious few fans, and drinking water is taboo for everyone — it is Ramadan, and the foreigners do not want to risk offending their Afghan colleagues, who are fasting all through the day. -- To be fair, the audit is an enormous undertaking, and no one had any idea it would be needed until it was announced, at which point it was given just two days to start. It took four. -- Hundreds of foreign observers are being brought in to help, each of whom requires housing and security. Western embassies have all been pressing staff into the effort. - More, NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/world/asia/afghanistans-election-result-hinges-on-a-squabble-prone-audit.html