Karzai praises "honesty and impartiality" of election

By Steve Hynd

How's this for bare-faced cheek?

In a statement Wednesday, Karzai praised the conduct of the August 20 vote.

"The president praised the (election officials) for holding the election with honesty and impartiality despite all the difficulties," the presidential palace said in a statement.

Karzai knows that flys in the face of all the evidence. If you can't call the Afghan elections stolen then the phrase "stealing the election" loses all meaning. But Karzai is flinging down a gauntlet to the occupying Coalition, who now find themselves in the worst of all possible situations.

Although the U.S. and its Western allies are officially soft-pedalling on the election fiasco, saying that difficulties were always expected and everyone must wait for the official process to finish, it's clear from David Cameron's caught remarks yesterday that behind the scenes everyone is well aware of the truth.

In private remarks picked up by a BBC camera crew, the Tory leader was heard to say that disparities between the number of votes cast and the number of people who voted "could not be right".

The comments, made to shadow foreign secretary William Hague yesterday, are likely to be interpreted as opening a further gulf between himself and Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the elections.

Mr Cameron was recorded as saying: "The things that seem to have happened are so naked, you know, you just saw the number of votes and the number of people who actually turned up at polling stations. It just could not possibly be right."

He was talking to Mr Hague at the Imagination Centre in central London before he gave his speech on cutting pay and perks at Westminster.

Mr Hague said: "I remember the 1979 election in Nigeria and this is the same sort of thing."

Mr Cameron replied: "We should be very clear about that."

Now, if the West endorses Karzai it faces a new insurgency from disaffected Afghans who won't accept Karzai's shameless "Nixoning" of the election (stealing an election he probably could have won fairly). If the West denies Karzai's protestations of honesty and impartiality and thus Karzai's victory, they're likely to add a new insurgency composed of Karzai's narco-warlord backers to their list of enemies. Coalition forces are already fighting a hydra-headed insurgency comprising Taliban jihadists, nationalists against the Western occupation and the militias of narolords who aren't part of Karzai's ruling faction...all labelled conveniently as "Taliban" in a move reminiscent of the unhelpful way in which all insurgents in Iraq were labelled as "Al Qaeda" for too many years.

There's no way to lipstick this pig as "success".