KABUL — Afghan election officials said Thursday that they will increase the number of voting centers for next week’s presidential runoff election, disregarding U.N. advice to open fewer sites to prevent the fraud that characterized the first round of balloting.
The announcement deepened fears that the Nov. 7 poll will be as tainted as the August election. U.S. and allied officials had hoped that the showdown between President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah would produce a government that can be a credible partner in efforts to stabilize the country.
The fraud that took place in the first round of voting has brought discredit to Karzai’s government and undermined U.S. public support for the war at a time when President Barack Obama is weighing a Pentagon request to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan.
U.N.-backed auditors threw out a third of the ballots cast for Karzai in the first round, forcing him into a runoff against Abdullah, his main challenger. U.N. and U.S. advisers said much of the fraud occurred at “ghost” voting centers, which never opened and yet returned results. There also was insufficient oversight at the centers that did open, they said.
The decision to add centers stunned international officials.
“The sheer arrogance of this is staggering,” said one Western official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “They disregarded all of the professional advice that has been given to them, and clearly there is a political agenda behind this.”
The Independent Election Commission plans to open 6,322 voting centers next week, 17 more than on Aug. 20, according to electoral official Zekria Barakzai.
