Looks like Karzai has been living up to the 'lofty ideals' of his political benefactors. Democracy at work.

Although he has quite some way to go before he's able to pull it off without attracting so much scrutiny. Still a trick or two the West can teach him.

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Afghan election fraud probe grows

Election complaints officials in Afghanistan say they are looking into more than 560 major allegations of fraud from the 20 August vote.

The tally doubles the figure of serious allegations reported two days ago.

Full preliminary results are due next week, but the final results will not be made official until major fraud allegations are investigated.

The latest partial results give President Hamid Karzai 46% of the votes compared to Abdullah Abdullah's 31.4%.

A candidate needs 50% of votes cast to avoid a second round run-off which, if needed, would be held in October.

State-crafted fraud?

The independent Electoral Complaints Commission said on Sunday that of more than 2,000 allegations of fraud and intimidation during voting and vote-counting, 567 had been deemed serious enough to affect the election's outcome, if proven.




On Friday, the commission had reported 270 major allegations.

With two-thirds of polling stations still to announce their results, Mr Abdullah has already alleged "massive, state-crafted" fraud.

He told the BBC on Saturday that ballot boxes had been stuffed with hundreds of thousands of votes.

"My concern is about massive fraud, state-crafted, state-engineered fraud which has taken place throughout the country," he said.

Mr Karzai has rejected allegations of state-crafted fraud.

His comments came days after it emerged that US special envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, in a meeting with Mr Karzai, raised concerns about ballot-stuffing and fraud by a number of candidates' teams.

However, officials of both Mr Holbrooke and Mr Karzai denied reports their talks had been "explosive" and a "dramatic bust-up."

With the election commission saying just over two million votes had now been counted, Kabul lawmaker Ramazan Bashardost was placed in third position, ahead of former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani.

Source: BBC

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Nevermind that the West has (and still is) fought a 8 year long war to remove the previous government and enforce these elections upon the Afghan people.

Of course it's nothing to do with the West... Care to come back down to earth?

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The Afghani people have been through a lot of different systems, Soviet enforced Communism, then Warlords, Talibaan and now Western imposed 'democracy'.

I hardly think Islam has had much of a chance to effect their lives over the past 30 or so years.

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Or... you're just much more professional than Karzai at concealing it.

Democracy is not being free, it's being enslaved to the desires of other people.

Just because we have a certain degree of freedom here in Australia doesn't mean democracy itself is about freedom. Remember that Nazi Germany was a democracy, as is Hamas controlled Ghaza. Do you think you'd feel free living in either of those?

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All depends on what you understand freedoms to be. Surely Australia has one of the widest conditions of personal freedoms, but in many cases it goes way too far. People are free to commit activities which many would consider crimes.

For instance adultery, fornication and homosexuality. Gambling, boozing and public nudity. These vices are evils, I hope you'll agree, which eat away at the fabric of Australian society, and cause it to become more and more morally corrupt.

Would a state that permitted incest and bestiality be more free than Australia? By your scale, they probably would. Is that a good thing?

Whilst on the flip side, most "Muslim countries" indeed have very little freedom, and that is again too far. But it's not because of Islam.

Islam certainly prohibits people committing acts it deems criminal, and perhaps you mistake that for curtailing of freedom.

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Raping is not permitted in Islam in any case, and I challenge you to produce any Islamic text claiming it is.

Anyway, the "God of Israel" seems to have no such problem with sleeping with captive women...

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(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

Or this one?

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(Deuteronomy 21:10-14)

Or perhaps this one?

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(Judges 5:30)

And there's plenty more.

What you need to realise is that in the Bible (ie. According to the "God of Israel") and the Islamic texts, this is not considered fornication, but is considered like marriage, and the man has a duty of care to clothe, feed and house the woman, just like a wife.