Half of the most senior Afghan district election officials will be replaced, UN officials said Wednesday, to prevent more fraud in a run-off presidential poll crucial to the country's credibility and foreign support. The announcement of a run-off to be held on Nov. 7 removed one stumbling block for US President Barack Obama as he weighs whether to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taleban. President Hamid Karzai's decision to accept the run-off against his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, came after days of diplomatic wrangling and helped ease tensions with the West. Concerns about a repeat of the widespread fraud that tainted the first round in August cast a long shadow as hasty preparations for the second round kicked off Wednesday. Karzai Tuesday agreed to face a second round after a UN-led fraud watchdog inquiry tossed out enough of his Aug. 20 first-round votes to push him below 50 percent and trigger a run-off. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan, which provides assistance with election-related operations, said preparations were under way to block any risk of mass fraud. Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN mission in Afghanistan, said 200 of 380 district election chiefs from the government-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC) were fired after the fraud watchdog found evidence of widespread fraud and vote-fixing. “More than half of the district field coordinators are being replaced to prevent any attempted fraud or because there have been complaints made against them by candidates and observers,” said Siddique. In his first remarks since Tuesday's announcement, Abdullah said his team was mapping out specific conditions and recommendations to avoid any risk of fraud. “We have certain suggestions, recommendations and conditions in order to avoid widespread massive fraud in the upcoming elections based on the experiences of the last round of elections,” said Abdullah, Karzai's former foreign minister. “Last night, I contacted Mr Karzai and I thanked him for his words and for his acceptance of the outcome of the elections,” he told reporters at his Kabul home. Many within Obama's Democratic Party have spoken out against sending more troops, while Republican opponents say his lengthy deliberations on a new strategy are undermining US troops and emboldening the Taleban. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates dismissed reports of rifts between Obama's military and civilian advisors on the Afghan war strategy. “These rumors of some kind of rift are just not accurate and do not reflect the close working effort between our military and civilians,” Gates told a news conference Wednesday during a visit to Japan. Gates said the problems over the legitimacy of the Afghan government would not be resolved by a run-off alone and described the situation as an “evolutionary process”. - Reuters “Clearly, having the run-off, getting it behind us and then moving forward is very important,” he said. Election officials face a logistical nightmare, having just over two weeks to prepare for a second round of voting in a race against the harsh and fast-encroaching Afghan winter, which makes much of the mountainous country inaccessible.
