Some of Afghanistans prominent tribal leaders have claimed that President Hamid Karzai and his team have forged 23,900 votes. The 'New York Times' quoted tribal leaders in Shorabak District in Kandahar Province,as saying that aides to Karzais brother Ahmed Walidetained the governor of Shorabak,Delaga Bariz,and shut down all of the districts 45 polling sites on election day. They said the ballot boxes were taken to Shorabaks district headquarters,where,local police officers stuffed them with thousands of ballots. At the end of the day,23,900 ballots were shipped to Kabul,Bariz said,with every one marked for President Karzai. Not a single person in Shorabak District cast a ballot not a single person, Bariz said in an interview in Kabul,where he and a group of tribal elders came to file a complaint. The accusations by Mr. Bariz,and several other tribal leaders from Shorabak,are the most serious allegations so far that have been publicized against Karzais electoral machine,which faces a deluge of fraud complaints from around the country. The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission said Tuesday that the number of complaints about vote stealing and other forms of fraud had reached 2,615. In Kandahar Province,where Karzais family is in control,allegations of a type similar to those made in Shorabak have been made in many of the provinces 17 districts. Early election returns show that Karzai has managed to capture nearly 48,000 votes,compared with only 3,000 for Abdullah,his nearest challenger. Slightly less than half of all ballots have been counted. Karzai leads with about 46 percent of the vote,compared with 33 percent for Abdullah. Karzai and his aides deny any sort of fraud.
