Afghan President Hamid Karzai is ahead in the slow tally of ballots cast in the Aug. 20 elections. But the question looming for many Afghan voters isn't who will win, but whether the balloting was credible.
That decision rests with an American, a Canadian, a Dutchman and two Afghans who serve on the country's Electoral Complaints Commission. Hundreds of formal complaints of election fraud have been filed to the commission. If proven, the allegations could change the outcome of the race.
In an austere building in an eastern suburb of Kabul, dozens of workers peruse election complaints pouring in from across Afghanistan.
The stack is so high that Commissioner Maarten Halff says his staff has to "triage" the complaints as medical workers do patients in an emergency room.
"We are all nurses. We need to quickly determine what is wrong with the patient. We don't need to cure him or her. What we need to do is quickly figure out how serious it is and whether the person needs to go to the emergency room or can wait for an hour before the doctor arrives," Halff says.
Validating Complaints No Easy Task
As of Sunday night, the Electoral Complaints Commission had 640 "Priority A" complaints, including ballot-box stuffing and voter intimidation. Proven violations could result in ballots being tossed out or even a new vote and fines up to the equivalent of $2,000.
The commission could have results from some of its fraud investigations as early as Wednesday. But Halff says validating the range of hundreds of complaints is not going to be easy for the commission's handful of investigators and international advisers.
"Much of what I've seen thus far involves simply stating the allegation — stating this is what happened, here is my phone number and leaving it to the Electoral Complaints Commission to investigate it further. So there's a still a bit of work to be done on all those complaints," he says.
That work must happen before the commission can rule on the charges. In cases where the paperwork isn't detailed enough, Halff says, investigators will either have to travel to the district where an alleged violation took place or try and reach witnesses by telephone.
Building Trust In Democratic Processes
So far, Afghan voters seem to be waiting patiently for the results. They view the commission as one of the few credible steps in a highly questionable election process.
With 47.8 percent of the votes counted Monday, Afghan election officials said Karzai led with 45.8 percent of the vote. Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah had 33.2 percent. An October runoff would be held if neither candidate reaches more than 50 percent.
Nader Nadery, who heads the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, sent 7,000 observers to monitor the elections at polling stations across the country.
"If we are going to have people's confidence and trust on the democratic processes, we do need to let this mechanism work properly, and this is a time and a test for all of us to let it work properly and in a transparent way," Nadery says.
There was no complaints commission during Afghanistan's first presidential election in 2004. There were also few alleged violations then.
This time, the charges are plentiful and ominous: gunmen and government officials running off with ballot boxes, or local strongmen hanging out at polling centers to pressure voters into backing certain candidates.
The powerful complaints watchdog, appointed by Afghanistan's Supreme Court, the country's human rights commission and the United Nations, has voters hoping for a fair outcome in the end.
Questions Linger About Commission
Even so, Afghan patience has limits, says the campaign spokesman for Abdullah, the candidate running second.
The spokesman, Fazel Sancharaki, questions whether the commission will do its work openly and without bias. He says people know little about the many Afghan employees working for the body and where their allegiances lie.
There is also widespread fear that Afghans will riot if the commission finds no serious fraud and allows the election to be certified without a run-off.
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