Afghan runoff election to be held November 7th between Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah

This is all part of the managed democracy arranged courtesy of the US and NATO with the UN helping out. The runoff election will no doubt also feature deals and some fraud. Abdullah Abdullah is not even close to Karzai even after all the Karzai votes were thrown out. If the figures are correct Karzai still has a 17 point lead!

""The ECC tally has increased the share of his closest rival, former foreign minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah, from 28 to 32 per cent - though he too had more than 200,000 ballots discounted. Overall, some 1.26 million recorded votes were excluded from an election that cost the international community more than $300 million. """

Karzai even with all his votes tossed out still has over 49 percent of the vote if the figures in this article are correct. Anyway US and its allies will be footing another bill after spending 300 million on the last election. I suppose since the occupiers paid the bill they also feel they should be able to determine the outcome and that is exactly what they have done. Karzai had up until just a short while ago been rejecting the idea of a runoff and the UN had tended in that direction as well. But the US is the biggest paymaster and so it eventually called the shots. There were also desperate attempts to cobble together a coalition govt. but Abdullah Abdullah wanted too much it seems. All of this is being done through the good graces of the US NATO and the UN. The Afghan general public are not involved and if reports are correct they probably will vote in even less numbers in the runoff than in the earlier election. No matter, the point is not what the Afghans want. The US and NATO want a "credible" partner that is one who will do what the US and NATO want. If this does not happen the cannon fodder and tax money that funds this farce may not be forthcoming much longer. The election fraud was part of a much larger fraud perpetrated not upon the Afghans but on the taxpayers of the US and its allies.

""Afghanistan to hold poll run-off

Afghanistan is to hold a presidential poll run-off after the Independent Election Commission ruled over a third of incumbent Hamid KarzaiHamid Karzai's vote as fraudulant.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said on Tuesday that the run-off will be held on November 7, after unity talks between Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, his closest rival and former foreign minister, broke down.

"....."It will go to a second round on November 7. The reason was Karzai's vote was 49.67 and could not reach above 50 per cent," Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for the IEC, said.

In a news conference in Kabul on Tuesday, Karzai said that he accepted the findings of the fraud panel and confirmed that the run-off would be held.

He said that that he hoped the forthcoming days before the poll would pass off peacefully.

The IEC announcement confirmed their acceptance of the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission's (ECC) findings that voting at 210 polling stations should be discarded after claims of widespread fraud.

.....Those results last month had showed Karzai winning the election with more than 54 per cent of the vote to Abdullah's 28 per cent.

".....the US "would prefer a second round than have Karzai come in on what many people see as flawed results". """"