We have seen the blog and all news sites flooded by articles on the newest elections in Afghanistan, and the winner Hamir Karzai. Yesterday at a news conference in Kabul, Karzai gave his first words since he was elected President. On the resignation of Abdullah he said:
"It would have been better for our country, for the democratic process and for us, if our brother Dr Abdullah had participated... and the second round had taken place,"
On other comments, he said that the government has been seriously discredited by administrative corruption, and he promised to "try to remove this stigma from our soil and our country in any possible way." He said he would work with anyone, wether or not they were on his side on the elections. He also called the Talibans to come home and embrace their land. To that, a resurgent Taliban responded: ""What is astonishing is two weeks ago they were arguing that the puppet president Hamid Karzai was involved in electoral fraud... but now he is elected as president based on those same fraudulent votes, Washington and London immediately send their congratulations"
Were the elections a fraud or not? We don't know, but there are several reasons that could point to a fraudulent elections. Several votes were discounted, bringing Karzai's votes to less than the 50% required for outright victory, so a second round was needed. The second round was scrapped to save money.
