Warlords in Afghanistan could hijack upcoming elections and entrench their own power, a report from Human Rights Watch warns. The group says local strongmen are using force, threats and corruption to dominate the election process and intimidate candidates and voters.
Read the HRW Report
This presents us in an interesting situation when contrasted with the level of security available in Iraq. If true security can not be established, can the final result of the any election be trusted?
Vyan
2 comments:
CIA influence in Iraq's elections.
What a surprise.
How Much U.S. Help?The Bush Administration takes heat for a CIA plan to influence Iraq's electionsMonday, Sep. 27, 2004
President Bush and interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi insisted last week that Iraq would go ahead with elections scheduled for January, despite continuing violence. But U.S. officials tell TIME that the Bush team ran into trouble with another plan involving those elections — a secret "finding" written several months ago proposing a covert CIA operation to aid candidates favored by Washington. A source says the idea was to help such candidates — whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran — but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections. But lawmakers from both parties raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill. In particular, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi "came unglued" when she learned about what a source described as a plan for "the CIA to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections." Pelosi had strong words with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in a phone call about the issue.
Rice spokesman Sean McCormack says, "I cannot in any way comment on classified matters, the existence or nonexistence of findings." But, McCormack says, "there have been and continue to be concerns about efforts by outsiders to influence the outcome of the Iraqi elections, including money flowing from Iran. This raises concerns about whether there will be a level playing field for the election. This situation has posed difficult dilemmas about what action, if any, the U.S. should take in response. In the final analysis, we have adopted a policy that we will not try to influence the outcome of the upcoming Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office." A senior U.S. official hinted that, under pressure from the Hill, the Administration scaled back its original plans. "This was a tough call. We went back and forth on it in the U.S. government. We consulted the Hill on this question ... Our embassy in Baghdad will run a number of overt programs to support the democratic electoral process," as the U.S. does elsewhere in the world.
From the Oct. 04, 2004 issue of TIME magazine
The Ohio Democratic Party is suing Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to make sure that he follows federal law and accepts the registrations for these new Ohio voters.
The Ohio Democratic Party and the Sandusky County Democratic Party filed the lawsuit against Blackwell today in United States District Court in Toledo. Sandusky County Democrats are particularly concerned about the voting rights of farm workers and other minority citizens in northwest Ohio. The lawsuit asks the court to declare that Blackwell's decision violates HAVA, and to order him to issue a new directive that complies with federal law.
"Ken Blackwell is becoming the Katherine Harris of 2004. He is trying to place new obstacles in the way of Ohio voters, and we will not let him do it," said State Sen. Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo). "He's trying to cook the vote with directives to county boards of elections that are discriminatory and move our voting rights backwards."
Click here to read the Ohio Dems' complaint against Ken Blackwell.
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