Hamid Karzai has proven himself again, on October 20th, 2009, to be the bigger man, the greater statesman, a man that cares more about his Nation than his position. His biggest opponent is not Abdullah Abdullah, former Foreign Minister and closest competitor for office of the President of Afghanistan. Minister Abdullah appears to be a man of similar character to Hamid Karzai. President Karzai's biggest opponent is not his opposite, Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, atrocious, and former ruler of Afghanistan. President Karzai's biggest opponent is the President of the United States, who has ordered a full court press on the continued leadership of Afghanistan by Karzai.
President Karzai understands that to defend democracy, more Troops are needed. He has seen that the request by General McChrystal for more Troops is on hold until the POTUS is certain all avenues to oppose President Karzai have been exhaushted. Karzai has set aside his Afghan Pride in order to salvage his Afghan Nation and Afghan Democracy.
If it weren't for the hands off approach the administration took to the blatant election fraud in the Iran Election, this might be viewed as typical interference by one politician in the affairs of a foreign state. It might even be viewed as an altruistic belief in the democratic process. Let's face it, the fact that shenanigans occurred in Afghanistan surprises no one. Anyone that thinks that all sides didn't try and succeed at something is a bit on the naive side of things. The real question is not if they occurred, but to what extent that effected the outcome.
For others, including the POTUS, the question seems to be: How can the fact that irregularities occurred be used to undermine the allied head of state?
The POTUS is not a stranger to allegations of election irregularities. His first bid for elected office was reportedly secured by disqualification of all opponents to even be on the ballot. That's Chicago, a city known as one of the two most corrupt in the United States. Allegations of voter intimidation (by members of the Black Panthers) and voter registration fraud (by ACORN) were swept under the rug in the 2008 election that put the POTUS in office. With the allegations going into the Millions, it is unknown if that would have changed the outcome. If true and strategically instituted, it may have. Fourteen or fewer counties out of more than 3000 in the US provided the decisive edge in the US Elections.
If the same standards were placed on the 2008 US election that have been pushed on the 2009 Afghan election, France would have selected the 210 American Counties most strategic to the winner of the 2008 election and told the UN to force the votes be invalidated. The Federal Election Commission would then have bowed to the United Nations demands instituted by France. I can only imagine the outrage. Even ardent conservatives would likely have called foul.
Could the POTUS have won if Major Cities like Cincinnati, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Miami, Detroit and others were invalidated? Unlikely. The 2000 Elections demonstrated how even one part of one state, the Miami area of Florida, could swing an election. While the absentee ballots of American Troops were never fully counted, the strategic recount pushed the United States into a brink of crisis while lawyers flocked to the area and the Nation awaited a final decision.
There are some major differences though. The United States President is chosen by simple majority of electoral votes, based on the most popular votes of the individual states. The Afghan President is chosen by a mandatory 50%+ of all votes cast. Karzai had 54% of pre-UN interference votes compared to 28% for Abdullah. In the US, that would be a landslide. In Afghanistan, if 4.0001% of those votes for Karzai are invalidated, it forces a runoff election. And that seems to be the goal of the US Administration. It is seriously doubtful that a runoff between Karzai, a Pashtun, and Abdullah, not a Pashtun, will be different in a Nation that has a Pashtun majority, than the initial results.
What will likely change is the percentage by which Karzai wins. 18% of the vote is up for grabs. They voted for the "3rd Party Candidates," analogous to Bob Barr, the Green Party, etc. They won't have that choice in a runoff. Let's say they all vote against Karzai: The result would be 54%-46% for Karzai. Still a greater percentage win than our own President achieved.
For another 3 weeks to 3 months, the Nation of Afghanistan will still be asking itself who it's President will be. But a weakening of the Afghanistan Presidency has long been the US Administration's goal. The long standing diplomatic damage between the POTUS and Karzai will have been deepened, Afghanistan democracy will have been weakened, and the Taliban will have a 2nd chance to disrupt elections.
Iran will have a chance to influence elections, again, in its neighbor. They have experience with election fraud and in this go-round will have less distraction with maintaining control in their own nation of terrorism and tyranny. In fact, there are allegations that they did so in Iraq, by flooding the Nation with their own citizens to vote for Shi'a Islamists. While reports of the same in Afghanistan haven't seen major reporting, it should be expected that it has occurred. Iran and Pakistan have long vied for influence in Afghanistan.
Perhaps the good news is that the Taliban is busy in Pakistan, trying to survive. The runoff election could give the Pakistanis a little reprieve as the Taliban run off to vote and commit violence in Afghanistan or it could be that the polling stations are less beset by Taliban thugs since they're busy getting killed by Pakistani troops.
To demonstrate how easy it would be to change election results in the manner the POTUS pressured the UN to pressure the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan to do, I'll use the results of 2008 in four scenarios. Each scenario would result in a McCain win.
ALL votes of the following counties thrown out (to present appearance of fairness):
Situation 1: (24 Counties)
FL: Broward (27 Electoral Votes)
IL: Cook, DuPage, Henry, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Peoria, Rock Island, Sangamon, St. Clair, Whiteside, Will, Winnebago (21 Electoral Votes)
MI: Gennessee, Ingham, Kalamazoo, Macomb, Oakland, Saginaw, Washtenaw, Wayne (17 Electoral Votes)
NC: Forsyth (15 Electoral Votes)
OH: Cuyahoga (20 Electoral Votes)
Total: 100 Electoral Votes, changing 2008 to McCain 273 to Obama 265
Situation 2: (34 Counties)
CA: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Marin, Monterey, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, Ventura (55 Electoral Votes)
NY: Albany, Bronx, Brooklyn, Broome, Erie, Manhattan, Monroe, Nassau, Onodaga, Queens, Suffolk, Tompkins, Ulster, Westchester (31 Electoral Votes)
VA: Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Norfolk, Prince William (13 Electoral Votes)
Total: 99 Electoral Votes, changing 2008 to McCain 272 to Obama 266
Situation 3: (14 Counties)
FL: Broward (27 Electoral Votes)
IN: Monroe, Vigo (11 Electoral Votes)
VA: Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Norfolk, Prince William (13 Electoral Votes)
PA: Allegheny, Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery (21 Electoral Votes)
NC: Forsyth (15 Electoral Votes)
OH: Cuyahoga (20 Electoral Votes)
Total: 107 Electoral Votes, changed total: McCain 280 to Obama 258
Situation 4: (64 Counties)
FL: Broward (27 Electoral Votes)
IN: Monroe, Vigo (11 Electoral Votes)
VA: Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Norfolk, Prince William (13 Electoral Votes)
PA: Allegheny, Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery (21 Electoral Votes)
NC: Forsyth (15 Electoral Votes)
OH: Cuyahoga (20 Electoral Votes)
CA: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Marin, Monterey, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, Ventura (55 Electoral Votes)
NY: Albany, Bronx, Brooklyn, Broome, Erie, Manhattan, Monroe, Nassau, Onodaga, Queens, Suffolk, Tompkins, Ulster, Westchester (31 Electoral Votes)
IL: Cook, DuPage, Henry, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Peoria, Rock Island, Sangamon, St. Clair, Whiteside, Will, Winnebago (21 Electoral Votes)
MI: Gennessee, Ingham, Kalamazoo, Macomb, Oakland, Saginaw, Washtenaw, Wayne (17 Electoral Votes)
Total: 231 Electoral Votes: changed total: McCain 404 to Obama 135, a landslide.
My point is not that such a ploy should be implemented, but that with such a ploy as throwing out the votes, all votes, from as few as 14 counties (of 3,114), the 2008 elections would be changed. The counties selected were based on results. I used the data available from the University of Michigan and Real Clear Politics to target specific counties that heavily voted for the winner of the election, in states with high electoral votes to demonstrate how a few areas could change the results.
By throwing out less than 1/2% of all US Counties, you change the results and by throwing out 2.5% of US Counties, you create a landslide in the opposite direction of the results. In Afghanistan, the US Administration has directed the UN and EU Commission to force the Afghan Independent Election Commission to throw out as many as 1.5 Million votes out of 5.8 Million. That's more than 25% of the vote and 10% of all polling stations cast aside. 1.1 Million of those were for President Karzai and .3 Million for Minister Abdullah.
If directly discounted, that would be 1.9 Million votes still counted for President Karzai and 1.3 Million for Minister Abdullah. Evidently, the other 835,000 votes should still be counted according to the US Administration. Those votes are needed to require a runoff.
In fact both parties in the United States have full time paid employees that maintain such information. Republican Presidential candidates have little focus in California and Democrats have little focus in Texas because they don't expect their money is well spent there. They spend a lot of money in Florida because it is close there with a big reward in electoral votes. One County in Florida decided where 27 electoral votes went. One County in Ohio, One County in North Carolina, and two in Indiana determined their electoral votes.
If selected counties in a few key states were thrown out of the 2008 election, not only would there have been an electoral landslide in favor of Senator McCain, but the popular vote would have favored him. The POTUS received less than 53% of the US vote, with less than 50% (all) of Americans voting. Karzai received 54% of the Afghan vote. Allegations of voter intimidation in the US was limited to reports of armed thugs standing menacingly outside polling stations, while enemies of Karzai and democracy threatened explosives and bullets inside polling stations. American voters were subjected to tongue lashings and name calling by the opposition while Afghan voters lost fingers and lives to bullets for even being suspected of voting.
The worst factor in all of this is that the POTUS refuses decision on a request by General McChrystal for more Troops while demanding a runoff election while claiming the first election was not properly secured. To have fairer and freer elections, more Troops are needed, whether US, German, Canadian, or British. To have fairer and freer elections, more Afghan Troops are not necessarily the answer. In fact, given the interference of the US Administration, even more US Troops at the polling stations might allow for false allegations of voter intimidation. There is no force that would work more diligently to provide a fair and safe election than US Troops, but one must ask why the POTUS has worked so hard against President Karzai when it stood mute about the blatant fraud in Iran.
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