[JURIST] Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday blamed foreign officials for the extensive irregularities that occurred during last year’s disputed presidential election. Though admitting that fraud was widespread, Karzai accused UN and EU representatives, particularly former deputy head of the UN-backed mission Peter Galbraith, of attempting to influence vote counts and disseminating false information to media outlets in an effort to slander his campaign. He further alleged that electoral officials were offered bribes by embassy representatives, though he did not specify which embassies were involved. Both the UN and EU declined to comment on the accusations.
On Wednesday, the lower house of the Afghan Parliament rejected Karzai’s proposal to require that all appointees to the UN-supported Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) be of Afghan citizenship. In November, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) declared Karzai the winner of the election after challenger Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the runoff election due to the his belief that the upcoming vote would not be free or fair. Karzai was originally declared to have secured over half the vote, avoiding a runoff, but this was challenged by the EEC in October when it invalidated a significant portion of Karzai’s vote due to findings of fraud at 210 polling stations. Soon after the election was held in August, Abdullah alleged widespread voter fraud, filing more than 100 complaints with the ECC alleging ballot stuffing, inflated vote counts, and intimidation at the polls by Karzai supporters.