Karzai: Foreigners manipulating Afghan vote recount

The Presidential campaign of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused foreigners of manipulating recount process, saying new results would not be acceptable.

Karzai campaign spokesman Waheed Omar said on Sunday the recount process is being politically manipulated by outsiders.

Campaign officials criticized the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) that is re-tallying the numbers.

“The ECC is pretty much controlled by foreigners, and its foreign commissioners intervene in the process,” chief advisor to the Karzai campaign, Maeen Mirstyal, said.

The commission finished its audit Saturday and is reviewing it before releasing it in coming days. If the commission announces that Karzai is found to have less than 50% of the vote, the result could force a run-off with his main rival Abdullah Abdullah.

Meanwhile, thousands of Karzai’s supporters demonstrated against “foreign interference” through the town of Spin Boldak in the southern province of Kandahar.

According to the preliminary results, Karzai won nearly 55% of the vote.

“If the ECC came up with their final numbers through a technical assessment, the result would be acceptable to everybody, even the president,” Mirstyal was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal.

“But if they bring his votes down below 50% and there is a runoff, it won’t be acceptable to us.”

President Karzai has been at loggerheads with Western powers in the war-torn country over the handling of the so so-called war on terror in the country.

He has long been blasting the US and NATO-led forces for the high number of civilian casualties in their indiscriminate attacks against the alleged militants.

The Afghan president has also been under pressure over revelations regarding the foreign powers’ role in expanding the insurgency throughout the country.

Earlier in the week, Karzai was quoted by the BBC Persian as having ordered an investigation into reports of ‘unknown’ army helicopters carrying gunmen to the relatively calm north.

The Afghan president said based on unconfirmed reports, the helicopters have been taking gunmen to Baghlan, Kunduz and Samangan provinces overnight for about five months now.

On Saturday, diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity told Press TV that the British army has been relocating Taliban insurgents from southern Afghanistan to the north by providing transportation means.