Voting 'farce' & ballot 'stuffing', but incumbent returned..

The international panel concluded that fraud had occurred, in particular evident ballot box stuffing, but that it had not been widespread or limited to one particular candidate. "There were fewer problems on election day than many experts had anticipated," Craig Jenness, a Canadian diplomat and one of the three members of the panel, said.

The panel dismissed the allegation that the failure of the indelible ink had led to multiple voting, an allegation leveled on election day by 15 of Mr. Karzai's opponents who called for a boycott just hours after polling stations had opened. Up to 60 percent of polling stations were affected by the ink problem, yet it "did not have a significant effect on the credibility of the election process as a whole," the panel reported today.

Yet the panel criticized the electoral board's handling of the problem and recommended changes to the organization, to improve efficiency and diminish the high level of mistrust that opposition candidates harbor for the board, which they see as a pro-Karzai body.

Acknowledging that there were serious irregularities in the registration process, the panel also called for an immediate and thorough audit of the electoral register. Some estimates have said that 10 to 15 percent of the 11.5 million registered voters, both inside Afghanistan and among refugees, may be multiple registrants, the panel said. It said, however, that local and foreign observers had seen little multiple evidence of multiple voting.