Afghan Election Protests in Kabul

Hundreds of people, including several candidates for Afghan parliament, rallied in the streets of Kabul today to protest against the Electoral Complaints Commission’s (ECC) slow action since the September election.

The election saw an almost unprecedented level of fraud, and around a quarter of all the ballots cast have been discarded as fraudulent. This has become sort of the expected result in Afghanistan, the world’s most corrupt nation, but many fear the fraud has only begun.

With 1.3 million votes canceled there is considerable room for the ECC to play favorites with candidates, and given the ubiquitous corruption in the Afghan government there is little reason to believe the ECC would be immune.

This has led to growing complaints that the ECC itself is “selecting” winners in the election, and while they deny these allegations it seems virtually impossible, with a quarter of the votes already in the garbage, for them to argue that the results reflect voter opinion.