Afghan Presidential Election, 2009 - November 7 Run-off Election

November 7 Run-off Election

"It is hard to see how a second round can be credible." —Rachel Reid, Human Rights Watch, October 22, 2009

On October 23, election authorities, with UN assistance, began delivering ballots for the November 7 run-off. UN planes flew ballots and voting kits to provincial capitals from where they would be delivered to thousands of polling stations by helicopter, truck, women and donkey.

Because of insecurity and fraud concerns, 7,000 polling stations – nearly 30% of the 24,000 polling stations that had been set up for the August 20 vote – were cut for the run-off vote.

There were also concerns that voter turnout for the run-off could be even lower than the "anemic" turnout of 30–33% in the first round on August 20.

According to Gilles Dorronsoro, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment and an expert on Afghanistan and South Asia: "This time around, the weather will be worse, and the plain fact is, most Afghans don’t like their options enough to vote."

The UN told the IEC that 200 of its 380 district election chiefs in the first round had ignored procedures or been complicit in fraud and must not be hired again.

"The international community cannot expect Afghans to risk their lives to participate in a sham election." —J. Scott Carpenter, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an official election observer during the first round

The run-off campaign period formally opened on October 24. Abdullah's campaign called for the dismissal of the three top officials of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), accusing them of having allowed widespread fraud in the first round of the election.

Both run-off candidates were reported to be frantically wooing Ramazan Bashardost, the presidential candidate that had placed third in the August 20 first round vote.

Bashardost, who had campaigned against the corruption and greed of Kabul politicians and against the poverty of Afghans, said he had not decided who to support between the two – if anyone – saying the choice was between "the worst, and worse than the worst."

The Taliban reiterated their call for Afghans to boycott the election, denouncing it as a foreign-orchestrated sham.

On October 26, Abdullah called again for the sacking of Azizullah Lodin, the head of the Independent Election Commission, saying that he had "no credibility". Karzai rejected the call by Abdullah, stating "the changes would not be helpful to the elections and the country".