SFishy
10-09-2004, 01:04 AM
First votes cast in Afghan poll
There were queues before polling stations opened in Kabul
Afghans are voting to choose their president in what is the country's first mass democratic poll.
The favourite is the interim President, Hamid Karzai, who has led the country since the fall of the hard-line Islamic Taleban nearly three years ago.
However, a problem with the indelible ink used to mark voters' fingers has led to a suspension of voting in some Kabul polling stations.
Voters found they could wash off the ink, leading to fears of fraud.
The UN, which is supervising the poll, said that voting could be suspended elsewhere as well.
"My own family members and neighbours who have returned from polling stations could easily clean the ink off while washing their hands," Abdul Hasiz Mansor, one of the candidates told the AFP news agency.
"Using this ink it is easily possible that people can vote more than once. We strongly object to this," he said.
Rest of the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/#/hi/south_asia/#######.stm
numbers: Two / ThreeSevenTwoSevenThreeTwoFour
<HR>
I'm hoping for no terrorism, but was surprised by this report! You'd think the UN would be smart enough to work these kind of kinks out ahead of time.
There were queues before polling stations opened in Kabul
Afghans are voting to choose their president in what is the country's first mass democratic poll.
The favourite is the interim President, Hamid Karzai, who has led the country since the fall of the hard-line Islamic Taleban nearly three years ago.
However, a problem with the indelible ink used to mark voters' fingers has led to a suspension of voting in some Kabul polling stations.
Voters found they could wash off the ink, leading to fears of fraud.
The UN, which is supervising the poll, said that voting could be suspended elsewhere as well.
"My own family members and neighbours who have returned from polling stations could easily clean the ink off while washing their hands," Abdul Hasiz Mansor, one of the candidates told the AFP news agency.
"Using this ink it is easily possible that people can vote more than once. We strongly object to this," he said.
Rest of the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/#/hi/south_asia/#######.stm
numbers: Two / ThreeSevenTwoSevenThreeTwoFour
<HR>
I'm hoping for no terrorism, but was surprised by this report! You'd think the UN would be smart enough to work these kind of kinks out ahead of time.