Protests lose force day after Afghan election

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Opposition candidates who declared Afghanistan's presidential election invalid Saturday after the wrong kind of ink was used to mark voters' thumbs began to back down yesterday, as international organizations called the ballot mostly fair and some Afghans angrily accused the opponents of interim President Hamid Karzai of overreacting.

''I think they saw how many people were voting for Karzai, and they got scared, so they decided to say the election was not fair," said Seelay Srek, 22, an observer working at a women's polling station.

She said she had been elated to watch Afghan women vote for the first time, and went home relieved that there had been little violence -- only to grow angry at the emphasis on the ink mistake.

''The ink is not important compared to millions of people's votes," she said.

On Saturday, voters in numerous polling stations reported that the ink marks that were supposed to prevent double voting were washing off easily. Hours later, Karzai's opponents called on Afghan and United Nations officials to scrap the election and hold a new one.

But yesterday, the ink fiasco appeared to lose some of its bite as the united front of Karzai's 15 opponents started to waver and international organizations declared the election mostly fair in spite of some irregularities.

One of the largest international delegations monitoring the elections called the candidates' demand ''unjustified" and said the ink problem should be investigated through the procedures set out in the country's electoral law, not by canceling the election.

''To nullify the results of an election where millions of people turned out without knowing what the facts are does seem to me . . . to be unjustifiable," said Ambassador Robert L. Barry, head of the 40-member election support team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

It's unclear how much of an impact the ink problem had; no group has reported widespread attempts by voters to vote twice.

Yesterday, two of the opposition candidates, Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq and Massouda Jalal, said they would withdraw their demands to rehold the election and instead file their complaints through the established process.

A spokesman for Mohaqiq said several other candidates would probably do the same. ''We will respect the UN," he said.

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and other international diplomats were scrambling to meet with candidates yesterday.

There were signs that other candidates were adopting a wait-and-see approach, sending their observers to counting centers rather than dropping out of the race outright as they had threatened.

Vote-counting is set to begin tomorrow. It could take two weeks or more to get a result.

Meanwhile, officials with the Joint Electoral Management Body, which oversaw the elections, promised an independent investigation into the ink problem.

''There could be mistakes; we are just human beings. My colleagues might have made a mistake," Farooq Wardak, electoral director, told the Associated Press.

Many nongovernmental organizations and analysts noted that the ink mix-up bore out concerns they had voiced that poll workers were too hastily trained to meet the election timeline backed by the United States.

''Looking ahead to the more complex, parliamentary elections in 2005, it's important to increase civic education for voters and training of poll workers," said Paul Barker, director of CARE International in Afghanistan.

Problems arose because poll workers were given many kinds of ink for different purposes; regular pens to mark ballots resembled indelible pens meant to mark voters' thumbs. Pots of ink were used as an alternate method of marking thumbs, and similar-looking pots were used to refill ink stamps for marking used ballots. In some cases, workers accidentally used the wrong ink; in others, the indelible ink dried out before the polls closed.

The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan found high voter participation and effective security measures. But its 2,300 observers around the country reported many worrying patterns.

In some polling stations, pens, ink, and ballot boxes were missing. In others, staffing levels were not up to the stated requirements. Across the country, poll workers lacked sufficient familiarity with the rules, and in many cases went behind voting screens to show people how to mark ballots. In three provinces, poll workers told residents to vote for particular candidates.

''This obvious lack of training and preparedness makes it worrying that some polling stations were completely devoid of observers," the elections foundation said in a statement.

The group said its observers noticed the ink problem in seven provinces.

Barry compared the ink mix-up to logistical problems that have cast elections into doubt even in countries with far more electoral experience. But he and other observers said the problems in Afghanistan's elections were small compared to those held in recent years in Bosnia and other postconflict zones.

In other irregularities noted by the OSCE, some candidates' agents tried to coach voters on which candidate to pick. Ballot boxes filled up early, and some voters were sent to other polling stations. Pakistani citizens tried to vote, but were caught.

Lieutenant General David Barno, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, called the elections ''a huge defeat for the Taliban."

''The Taliban basically didn't show. They had very limited attacks," he told the Associated Press, adding that insurgents will ''eventually look for ways to reconcile with the government that comes in."

Karzai said he was angry that his opponents had ''tried to spoil the celebration" after the election.

''The Afghan people voted yesterday in millions, that is what I see," he said, ''I am blinded to everything else. . . . I'm thrilled."

Srek, the Afghan journalist who acted as a poll observer in Kabul, said she was most excited when she saw an old woman arrive enthusiastically at the polls despite a pronounced limp. ''It made me happy," she said.

Another woman, she said, told her she planned to vote for Karzai against the wishes of her husband.

''When I go home, I'll tell him I voted for the guy he wanted," she confided.