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Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with the BBC’s Bilal Sarwary, who’s part of an investigative team that’s uncovered evidence of fraud and corruption in Afghanistan’s election – now just two days away.
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LISA MULLINS: Aside from the violence and intimidation Afghans also have to wrestle with rumors of vote rigging and fraud. Now a BBC investigation has obtained evidence of potential electoral abuses – voter cards for sale. Bilal Sarwary is part of the investigative team.
BILAL SARWARY: The BBC has Afghan staff so they are from the community, they know the people. And of our colleagues went undercover into the city and he was able to talk to several dealers. And finally a dealer agreed to sell us between 500 to 1000 votes each for $10 to $15.
MULLINS: How did the BBC even know where to go to find these voting cards? I mean who do you approach?
SARWARY: It’s a country where everything is based on relationships and information actually. So it wasn’t that big a task. One of the BBC’s local employees, through his contacts within the local community in Kabul, was able to go and actually find this guy.
MULLINS: And did the contact want to know who they were potentially selling these voting cards to?
SARWARY: Actually the BBC just approached this dealer and said that we were buying it for one of the candidates. We did not mention a name. And the guy actually at the other hand didn’t bother. All he was interested in was money. But he did admit to us that he’s had a lot of customers and he’s been having a good business which means he’s been selling this to a lot of other people.
MULLINS: Well maybe you can make clear exactly what it means to get one of these voter registration cards. I mean these are not ballots. These are cards that enable you to vote. But how can they be used to influence an election?
SARWARY: Well if, and I say because there’s a big if involved, if you have someone working for a candidate at the polling station could give you for example 100 ballots papers for 100 registration cards. But again that’s a big if.
MULLINS: So you’re saying that if you have 100 voter registration cards – these things that you can buy now – in hand when you go to a polling place if you can bribe I guess the person at the polls into taking all 100 then you’re candidate has 100 more votes?
SARWARY: That’s correct. But again how many people working at the polling stations will be involved in this sort of activity is only speculation at this stage. But there’s obviously room open for abuse so to speak. There’s room for fraud and there’s room for cheating.
MULLINS: And as it happens the head of the US electoral team in Afghanistan, Tim Carney, has also acknowledged that these voter cards are indeed in circulation but he also said this:
TIM CARNEY: Those cards are very difficult to use by individuals. An individual might have 100 cards but if they have their finger dipped in the reliable ink – and I’ve seen colleagues dip their fingers and have it persist for three weeks – that will ensure that a person may only cast one ballot. That seems to me to be an important aspect of limiting the use of these cards for a voter fraud.
MULLINS: Tim Carney speaking right there. Bilal I wonder if you agree with that. I mean can the ink curb or entirely prevent fraud?
SARWARY: I think I agree with everything Tim said there. But on the other hand we’ve spoken to people within the international community, within the civil society, and some within the Afghan government who say that there is a chance if someone is working for a specific candidate at a polling station he will basically you know be part of the fraud. And he’s going to execute this not an individual Afghan because an Afghan at any time can only vote once meaning that his finger will be dipped in the ink which will stay there for days.
MULLINS: Just one other question for you Bilal in terms of the big picture. I wonder how much this kind of fraud that you’ve been talking about will effect the election on Thursday.
SARWARY: Well I mean it’s difficult to say at this stage how widespread this is going to be and how much impact will this have on the final results. But one thing is very, very clear that Afghans are very, very optimistic about this election. For them election is about getting security. For them it’s about having a bridge for their village. So it’s a very different perception of election compared to the west.
MULLINS: Alright thank you. Speaking to us from Kabul, Afghanistan the BBC’s Bilal Sarwary – part of a team that documented attempts at election fraud in Afghanistan. Thank you very much Bilal.
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