Evidence of widespread fraud in Afghanistan election uncovered

The shaky footage shows two election monitors inspecting a book of 100 ballot papers that are still stitched together, as they were intended to arrive at the polling station in rural Afghanistan. But something is wrong; instead of being pristine, ready for the voter to make his or her mark, each paper bears a large blue tick next to the name of one candidate: Hamid Karzai.

As the monitors flick through the pad, the back of the ballots clearly show the authorisation stamp of election monitors, validating them as votes ready to be put in the ballot box and counted.

"We found it the day after the elections," one of the monitors in the footage told me. "They were trying to put it in one of the [ballot] boxes but didn't have time, so we took it home and filmed it. If we had given it back to the election committee they would have used it again, so we burned it, but filmed it to protect ourselves if they come and threaten us."

The video footage is just part of a picture of widespread fraud in the Afghan election uncovered by the Guardian.

On Thursday, President Karzai told a news conference: "I believe firmly, firmly in the integrity of the election and the integrity of the Afghan people, and the integrity of the government in that process." But evidence given by a number of officials and voters tells a very different story, one in which the selling of votes to presidential candidates was common and the idea of the election being fair was laughable.

I met a different official outside a Kabul juice bar, where he sat on the kerb with a look of defeat on his face, clutching a glass of squeezed pomegranate and wrapped by the blue fumes of kebab stalls and passing cars.

He showed me a series of photographs taken inside a brown cardboard voting booth in a village in Paktiya province of Afghanistan. One shows a man marking a big pile of ballot papers in the name of Hamid Karzai. Another shows a pile of election ID cards spread in front of an unidentified man wearing black shoes. "This man brought 120 cards and he used each of them to vote three times," said the official.

He had intended to hand his photographs to his superiors, he said, but as election day unfolded it became obvious that his superiors were themselves taking part in the fraud. "I thought I would give the pictures to the election committee. But they were all working for Karzai." Fearing he had been spotted taking the pictures, he fled to Kabul.

"Everyone was cheating in my polling station. Only 10% voted, but they registered 100% turnout. One man brought five books of ballots, each containing 100 votes, and stuffed them in the boxes after the elections were over."

The election official came from the district of Ahmad Aba in Paktiya, an area of dusty hills framed by high, ragged mountains and typical Afghan hamlets with mud-walled compounds, cornfields and orchards.

I sat there with half a dozen men on an embankment in the shadow of willow and apple trees. They were waiting for the Ramadan fast to pass, fumbling with their plastic prayer beads. Boys sat in a bigger circle behind the men and behind them shoes, a prosthetic leg and flip-flops were stacked.

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