WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Election officials deliver Afghan runoff ballots
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-23 01:49 In an effort to tamp down cheating, officials will cut about 7,000 of the 24,000 polling stations which they set up for the August ballot. Some of those stations were in areas too dangerous to protect. Others never opened, enabling corrupt officials to stuff the ballot boxes with impunity. About 200 of the 2,950 district election coordinators will be replaced following complaints of misconduct leveled by candidates or observers, the UN said. Finding replacements for coordinators and poll workers implicated in fraud will be difficult, especially in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is illiterate. The government had to scramble this summer to recruit enough election officials and poll workers, especially at voting stations reserved for women. It's unclear if they will be able to fill open posts with better-qualified people. Karzai is widely seen as the front-runner in the November 7 race. But Abdullah could pose a challenge if he is able to quickly build a wider coalition. Lawmaker and former Planning Minister Ramazan Bashardost, who came in third in the first round, said he had not made up his mind whom to support -- if anyone. He said he would meet with his supporters next week to decide, but the choice was between "the worst, and worse than the worst." Elsewhere, hundreds of angry students in the eastern town of Khost gathered Thursday at a local college and burned an American flag to protest a rumor that US forces had bombed a mosque and burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, in nearby Wardak province the week before. Khost's deputy police chief Yacoub Khan said the rumor was a hoax spread by Taliban supporters to stir up trouble and there was no evidence it had occurred. He said the demonstration was peaceful. Also Thursday, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said he hopes the runoff will result in a "level of legitimacy" in Afghanistan. "Hopefully getting through the elections in the next couple of weeks, we'll be able to have a level of legitimacy that we can use to deal with this government," he said in a meeting with hundreds of solders at the US military headquarters in Seoul, South Korea. "Because without that, I believe we can't succeed." Meanwhile, NATO defense ministers were expected in Slovakia on Thursday to discuss the war. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to brief allies in Bratislava about progress in a review of recommendations by American Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, who has called for more troops to quell the conflict. US forces said one of their troops died of wounds sustained in a bomb attack in the south on Wednesday. The death brings the total number of Americans killed in the conflict in October to at least 31. Britain's Ministry of Defense said a soldier with the country's Royal Military Police had also been killed. The soldier died as the result of a blast while he was patrolling in Helmand province on Thursday, the ministry said. The fatality brings to 222 the number of British military personnel who have died in Afghanistan since the start of operations there in late 2001.
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