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Hamid Karzai takes control of Afghanistan election watchdog

(The Guardian) – The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has unilaterally taken control of the country’s top electoral watchdog, provoking outrage from western diplomats, the Guardian has learnt.

The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), which forced Karzai into a runoff election after it disqualified nearly 1m fraudulent votes in last year’s presidential election, previously included three foreign experts named by the UN.

However, according to a new presidential decree published today, Karzai will have the exclusive power to appoint all five panel members. His decision to “Afghanise” the ECC came while parliament was in recess.

It provoked a shocked reaction from western diplomats, who fear parliamentary elections – due to take place in six months – will be fatally undermined by a repeat of last year’s electoral fraud.

A western diplomat said Karzai had given “two fingers” to the western donors who had pumped millions of dollars into establishing democratic elections in the country.

He said the Afghan president was using his power to make laws while parliament was not sitting in order to get rid of the three UN-appointed foreigners who had dominated the five-member ECC.

The commission’s Canadian chairman Grant Kippen and his two non-Afghan colleagues were instrumental in demanding an investigation into widespread fraud during the election last summer.