1.3 million Afghan votes thrown out! by Barbora Misakova

Preliminary results from the last month’s Afghanistan parliamentary elections have been released. While Western authorities were last month talking about success, Afghan president Hamid Karzaj wasn’t that sure. As he said, shortly after the election rooms were closed, it was too soon for Afghanistan to draw any conclusions from election and its organization. After month there are numbers that can shock. As Associated Press informed, there were more than 20 percent of ballots thrown out because of fraud. According to election commission chairman Fazel Ahmad Manawi, it means there were about 1.3 million votes disqualified. From the total number of 5.6 million vote! s, it is nothing insignificant. But as leaders from European Union has stressed, these elections highlighted “the will of the Afghan people to create future of their own country.” OSN also valued courage of Afghan people and their decision to use their own democratic right to vote. However these elections were as much about courage, as about fear. Taliban which was threatening people with attacks of voting rooms, was discouraging many voters, especially those illiterate ones. More than 300 of terrorization cases say more about the daily reality in Afghanistan than any other political statement about national courage. People are afraid, their lives, just like the lives of their family members are more important than so long promised democracy. But there were also problems with voting stations – some of them were not opened at all and in some of them was lack of ballot papers or other material . Anyway, western representatives still consider it was success. ! As they say, for the country with no experience with democracy! system these election’s results are optimistic.

related story (sgx18451): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_afghan_election;_ylt=Amy.5oycX...

by Barbora Misakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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