Karzai reached 54% of the vote in the preliminary announcement this weekend, though the IEC continues to cite dozens of cases of fraud.
Those tribal leaders that complained earlier? Karzai apparently took 100% of the votes in that district. Oops.
The West is cautiously calling for recounts, and possibly re-votes. The right answer here is to declare that the election was too marred to determine a winner, and have a run-off between the two candidates, though it begs the question: can more oversight be brought into the process? Or will Karzai (and/or his goons) steal this one, too?
If Abdullah leads a protest (and I'm not saying he shouldn't), an Iranian-style situation might arise... except that the Afghan state has extremely limited security powers, and the protesters will have Kalichnikovs. Things are going to get worse before they get better, if they do.
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