The Afghan Elections: Is Abdullah Right That He Was Wronged (Twice)? – Analysis --- In the final weeks before the second round of the Afghan presidential elections, my company undertook two polls of likely voters to determine which of the two candidates was in the lead – Dr. Abdullah Abdullah or Dr. Ashraf Ghani. Our primary motive for doing this was to provide transparency in the election process and to try and deter fraud at the polling stations and in the counting process. -- Many in the Western media and policy community assumed that Abdullah was a “shoo-in” for the second round because the official results from the first ballot had Abdullah at 45 percent and Ghani at 31.5 percent and because many of the candidates eliminated in the first round had endorsed Abdullah, the assumption being that voters would follow their chosen candidates’ advice. I had seen no evidence, however, that Pashtun and Uzbek voters would follow such endorsements and vote for Abdullah. In a straight two-way contest, I believed that the demographic numbers still favored Ghani over Abdullah. -- The two polls we undertook – one by telephone and the other face-to-face – had Ghani gaining significant momentum since the first round with a lead amongst likely voters of 48-49 percent to Abdullah’s 42-45 percent. These results showed that Ghani had secured the support of most Pashtun and Uzbeks voters and that he had retained the limited support he had secured with the other ethnic groups. Given that Abdullah was still around the 45 percent level, this indicated that he had just about maxed out his support base and could only increase his share of the vote if he could secure additional Pashtun support, which I considered unlikely --- My team then carried out two exit polls – again one face-to-face conducted at polling stations, and the other a telephone survey. We asked Afghan voters, who confirmed that they had just voted, whom they had voted for, and a majority (53/54 percent) said they had chosen Ghani over Abdullah (47/46 percent). These results were entirely consistent with the polling since March, showing Abdullah stuck at around 45 percent and with Ghani winning by 4-6 points in a reasonably free and transparent election. -- More, Andrew Garfield, EURO ASIA REVIEW؛ http://www.eurasiareview.com/02072014-afghan-elections-abdullah-right-wronged-twice-analysis/