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Afghanistan election fraud claims

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s campaign team has condemned as “irresponsible” claims by monitors of the European Union about the extent of election fraud. EU election observers have said about 1.5 million votes – about a quarter of all ballots – cast in the presidential vote in August could be fraudulent. The monitors said 1.1 million of the suspicious votes were for Karzai. The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has suggested that ballots from 10% of polling stations in the presidential vote need to be recounted. Jason Margolis looks at how serious a blow this is for Afghan democracy.

• BBC coverage
• Afghan poll: Main fraud allegations
• Marco Werman talks with NY Times correspondent Dexter Filkins about the fraud allegations (Sep8)
• Aaron Schachter reports on the role election monitors played in the election (Sep 8)