Azerbaijan, Baku, August 20 / Trend D. Khatinoglu /
At present, over 50 cases of falsification have been commited during the presidential elections, the head of presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah's election campaign, Fazil Sancharaki, has said.
"Presidential elections are being held peacefully. Turnout of the population can be called satisfactory. But we have discovered over 50 cases of falsification," Sancharaki said.
Sancharaki said that in several election districts pro-governmental forces are forcing people to vote for Karzai through threats and exhortation.
"We have received information that election bulletins were delivered late in several election districts. We had expected Abdullah to get at least 90 percent of the vote in these districts. Moreover, several districts launched their activity late. Therefore, we will lose some votes from the electorate," Sancharaki told Trend over the phone from Kabul.
He also added that the election commission has received an inquiry from Abdullah's election staff concerning the issue for certificates for 29,000 observers, since even half the certificates were not issued. The inquiry has also questioned the presence of one of Abdullah's election staff's observers in each election district.
"In several election districts ballot boxes were brought without the participation of our representatives. Ballot boxes were brought without participation of our observers in 14 cities of the Gazni Province," Sancharaki said.
The presidential elections were launched in Afghanistan on August 20. Election districts launched activity at 07:00 a.m. and will close at 16:00 p.m.
These presidential elections are the second after U.S military operations were launched in Afghanistan in 2001.
In the current presidential elections Karzai's key opponents are former Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, and former Finance Minister, Ashraf Gani Ahmadzi. As the Taliban is more active in the country's southern regions, it has not been ruled out that participation will be low in the elections. 76 representatives of international organizations are participating in the elections as observers.