Will Anyone Trust Afghan Election Results?
U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke went to Paris on Wednesday for a meeting with more than two dozen of his international peers. But it wasn’t a celebration ? Holbrooke was there pursuing a fair outcome to Afghanistan’s presidential primary election. The meeting was filled with reports of rampant fraud and further allegations of corruption during the country’s second-ever presidential election since the fall of the Taliban.
The latest results, with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted, show that incumbent president Hamid Karzai has 47.3 percent of the vote. As Afghanistan braces for a potential runoff election, we look at what Afghanistan can do to clean up their voting process with Noah Feldman, professor of law at Harvard, author of The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State and a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations; and Emal Pasarly, a reporter in the BBC’s Pashto section.
The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.