Sunday, August 30, 2009 KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday inched closer to the prospect of outright victory in elections marred by allegations of massive fraud and international concerns about their credibility. Officials have now announced results from 35 percent of polling stations in the second ever direct presidential vote in a country dogged by a Taliban insurgency, eight years after the US-led invasion. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on a lightning visit to the troubled south, pledged to speed up training Afghan security forces in order to battle the insurgency and eventually draw down international troops. As Brown visited Helmand province, an explosion killed a British soldier who was on foot patrol in the province, raising to 208 the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, British officials said. Out of 2.03 million valid votes counted, Karzai won 940,558 and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah 638,924, Daud Ali Najafi, chief electoral officer at the Independent Election Commission (IEC), told a news conference. The figures gave Karzai 46.3 percent of votes announced and Abdullah 31.4 percent, widening the incumbent's previous lead of around nine percent and apparently increasing his prospects of avoiding a second round. The results are being released in stages in a process that the IEC has said will lead up to the announcement of preliminary results on September 3, and the final tally on September 17.The next tranche is due to be released on Monday, the commission said. The time it is taking to release results has seen claims of fraud escalate.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
Comments