It is a veto....
"Afghan vote in doubt as international observers flee" by Rod Nordland and Matthew Rosenberg | New York Times March 30, 2014
KABUL — Usually, an Afghan election — a $100 million, Western-funded exercise — draws foreigners to Kabul like flies to honey, with incoming flights full of consultants, international monitors, diplomats, and journalists.
That's how I'm seeing them, yeah.
Not this time. Now, it is the flights out that are full, and the incoming planes are half empty. With the possible exception of journalists, foreigners have been leaving Afghanistan like never before during an election period after attacks on foreign targets and the commission running the vote.
An attack on the offices of the Independent Election Commission went on all Saturday afternoon, with staff members hiding in armored bunkers and safe rooms while five insurgents fired rockets and small arms at the commission’s compound, having sneaked into a building nearby disguised in burqas.
There were no reported casualties among the election staff, but flights to Kabul were diverted because the airport was shut down for most of the afternoon, said its director, Mohammad Yaqoub Rasooli.
Even before the attack Saturday, many international election monitors had drastically curtailed their activities or made plans to evacuate their foreign employees, potentially raising serious questions about the validity of the election.
I never had any; I know they will be invalid before they even happen.
The National Democratic Institute, a mainstay of previous Afghan elections, sent many of its foreign monitors, including Americans, home after a recent attack on the Serena Hotel, where they were staying. Some staff members remain here.
As if AmeriKa conducts clean elections and not rig jobs.
Ahmad Nader Nadery, chairman of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, said that another major monitor, Democracy International, had decided to cease its activities altogether. But a Democracy International official said the group had merely reduced its presence because of security concerns....
Elections that are relatively free and fair have been a minimum requirement for international donors, and many countries have made it clear that without them, they will not continue sending aid to Afghanistan at current levels.
Get's 'em off the hook in this age of au$terity as the West abandons Afghanistan once again.
Since the campaign began in January, insurgents have vowed to disrupt it. They have not attacked any of the 11 presidential candidates, who are heavily guarded.
Interesting.
Instead, they have carried out attacks on foreigners, mostly considered soft targets, as well as two high-profile attacks on election-related facilities....
The commission’s main compound “is in total lockdown, and we have moved our staff to bunkers and safe houses,” a spokesman, Noor Ahmad Noor, said Saturday. “None of the insurgents have managed to breach our security and enter.”
They weren't supposed to be able to get into Kabul, either.
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UN officials said they planned to keep a full complement of election experts and technicians in Afghanistan, though many other UN agencies here were operating with reduced staffs.
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Related:
"Taliban attack election offices to derail presidential vote" by Azam Ahmed | New York Times March 26, 2014
KABUL — A Taliban assault team turned election offices in eastern Kabul into a scene of carnage Tuesday....
Even as the attack was unfolding, the Taliban claimed responsibility, reemphasizing their campaign to disrupt the April 5 election....
After months of relative calm, Kabul has again been the scene of troubling attacks in recent weeks, stirring unease among Afghan and international officials here and raising questions about security for an election seen as critical to the country’s stability after the Western military pullout by year’s end.
I suppose the dead and maimed is all relative.
Officials hope the Taliban’s campaign of violence will not be enough to intimidate voters from taking part in the high-stakes election. With three main contenders vying for the presidency, observers hope turnout will be higher than for the 2009 election, when most expected Hamid Karzai to win and widespread violence kept many from voting.
Nothing about the electoral fraud?
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Related:
A nation shaped by war — and US money
And look at the shape it is in!
"By many measures, Afghanistan has made great gains over the last 13 years. There are more schools, more healthy women and children, more roads, more banks, more businesses, more media outlets, more soldiers and police — more everything. The one thing still missing, however, is a functioning democracy.... the real dark horse in the race is the potential for violence."
More dead bodies.
"Afghan authorities are under pressure to prevent fraud from discrediting the credibility of the upcoming vote. There were widespread allegations of ballot stuffing and vote rigging five years ago. The new leader will guide the country after international combat troops withdraw by the end of this year, leaving the country’s security to the Afghan government. Karzai has refused to sign a security agreement with the United States that would allow thousands of foreign forces to stay in the country in a largely training and advisory role."
One guy running is "a well-known academic and former World Bank employee."
Also see: Saying Goodbye to Karzai
They can't keep him?
