2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 27 partial results
Again, slightly different figures were reported in other accounts, covering the same news, in which IEC Chief Electoral Officer Daoud Ali Najafi told reporters in Kabul that Karzai had 42% and Abdullah 33% of 998,000 ballots counted from 17% of the polling stations in the country.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 27 partial results
998,000 ballots from 17% of the polling stations suggests a nationwide turnout of nearly 5.9 million. 940,000 ballots representing 17% of the ballots would suggest a turnout of 5.5 million out of 15-17 million voters registered. The presidential election of 2004 had produced a tally of approximately 8 million ballots out of 11 million voters registered.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 27 partial results
Ramazan Bashardost, the candidate likely to place third in the election, said the Independent Election Commission (IEC) officials were breaking electoral law by announcing results before the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) had completed its work. The complaints commission had by now received more than 1,400 complaints, with over 150 of them serious enough to change the vote's outcome.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 29 partial results
Partial results released on August 29, with 2.03 million ballots tallied from 35% of polling stations, gave the following numbers:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 29 partial results
Claims of massive fraud escalated with a total of more than 2,000 now received by the Electoral Complaints Commission, 270 of which it considered serious enough to have changed the outcome.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 29 partial results
Abdullah Abdullah stepped up his allegations of widespread vote rigging, saying that "massive fraud, state-crafted, state-engineered fraud" had taken place throughout the country," and that ballot boxes had been stuffed with hundreds of thousands of votes.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 29 partial results
On August 25, supporters of Abdullah threatened with violence if their candidate would lose, while Abdullah himself urged them to stay calm while the electoral commission would investigate their concerns.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 29 partial results
On August 30, the Electoral Complaints Commission announced that the number of allegations it considered serious enough to have affected the outcome had now reach 567, more than double the number announced the day before. The total number of complaints registered with the ECC had now reached 2,493, with over one-fifth classified as "Category A", meaning serious enough to alter the outcome. Most votes in the southern parts of the country, where Karzai is seen as having strong ethnic Pashtun support, and where complaints of fraud seemed highest, had yet to be counted.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 31 partial results
Partial results released on August 31, with 2,869,562 valid ballots tallied from 47.8% of polling stations, gave the following numbers:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 31 partial results
The results with nearly half of the polling stations counted pointed to a turnout of only 30% to 35%, adding to doubts about the election's legitimacy. Most of the ballots counted so far had been from polling stations in the north of Afghanistan, where most of Abdullah's support was. Observers said that the ballots from the south that mostly remained to be counted could put Karzai over the 50% needed to win the election without a run-off.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
According to a senior Western diplomat, hundreds of thousands of ballots for Hamid Karzai were from as many as 800 fake polling sites where no one had actually voted. The diplomat and another Western official also said that Karzai supporters took over approximately 800 actual polling centers on election day and used them to fraudulently report tens of thousands of ballots for Karzai. The Western diplomat said: "This was fraud en masse." In Karzai's home province, Kandahar, preliminary results indicated that more than 350,000 ballots had been turned in to be counted, but Western officials estimated that only about 25,000 people had actually voted in the whole province.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
According to an IEC official and a Western official in Afghanistan, the Independent Election Commission introduced a set of standards to exclude questionable votes on August 29, but when it appeared that the new exclusions would put Karzai's tally below 50%, the commission cast a second vote on September 7 to loosen the fraud standards.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
On September 8, 2009, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), dominated by U.N.-appointed Westerners, reported that over 720 major fraud allegations considered material to the outcome had been registered, and ordered recounts at polling stations where it had found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud" in at least three provinces. The U.N.-appointed ECC chairman, Grant Kippen, said voting irregularities included unfolded ballots (that would not have fit through a ballot box slot), identically marked ballots, and overly large ballot counts, including a box in Kandahar with 1,700 ballots when the maximum should be 600. Dozens of voting sites tallied by the Independent Election Commission reportedly had Karzai winning in perfectly round numbers like 200, 300, or 500 ballots.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
Also on September 8, 2009, with the IEC releasing the first partial results to show Hamid Karzai above the 50% threshold, the U.S. State Department called for a "rigorous vetting" of the electoral fraud claims.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
On September 10, 2009, the ECC ordered the invalidation of tens of thousands of ballots, mostly votes for Karzai, from 83 polling stations from three provinces. These included all presidential ballots from 5 polling stations in Paktika Province, either all presidential ballots, all provincial council ballots - or in some case both - from 27 polling stations in Ghazni Province, as well as ballots from 51 polling stations in Kandahar Province. The chairman of the ECC, Grant Kippen, said there would be no re-voting and that the ballots would simply discounted from the final tally. A source at the ECC indicated this was just the beginning of a process, according to a BBC correspondent.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
The Independent Election Commission indicated that results from 447 polling stations, or 200,000 ballots, had already been quarantined and flagged to the ECC for investigation, and that the figure could rise to 660 polling stations and as many as 500,000 ballots.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
On September 15, 2009, the foreign-dominated ECC ordered a recount of 2,600, or 10%, of the country's 26,000 polling stations – many of them in southern Afghanistan – a move expected to strip votes away from incumbent President Hamid Karzai. Because many of those polling stations had substantially higher turnouts than average, possibly the result of ballot stuffing, more than 10% of the vote could be affected. With the September 12 partial results showing Karzai at 54.3% of the votes, just 4.3 points above the 50% threshold, the ECC-ordered recount could potentially force a run-off election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
On September 21, 2009, over a month after the election day, and after several weeks of wrangling, it was reported that the IEC and ECC had agreed to rely on statistical sampling in the interests of expediency instead of carrying out an in-depth investigation of all the alleged voting irregularities.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
The exact methodology to be used had yet to be agreed upon and could take a few days.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
Supporters of the deal claimed that streamlining the complaints review process would reduce political instability. Critics of the deal said that bypassing a full investigation of all the irregularities would undermine faith in the credibility of the outcome.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
On September 25, 2009, the IEC and ECC announced that they had agreed to audit and recount ballots from only 313 of the 3,063 polling stations that had been deemed suspicious, representing a sample of about 10% of suspect ballot boxes, in order to expedite a resolution to the disputed election. According to the election officials, the 313 ballot boxes to be used in the statistical sampling were randomly selected in front of candidate agents and observers, and were to be retrieved from the provinces as soon as the next day.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
On September 26, 2009, Afghan newspaper "daily 8 Subh" quoted the IEC chief electoral officer as saying that a decision about whether a run-off would occur would be made within the next ten days, and that any run-off would be held within a month.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit
However, other news sources reported the IEC as urging the Electoral Complaints Commission to expedite their fraud investigations, saying that the final results must be released within the next ten days if the election commission is to be able to prepare a second round of voting before winter snow at the end of October makes voting impossible in parts of the country. Missing the window could delay any run-off until springtime, creating a power vacuum.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 2 partial results
Partial results released by the Independent Election Commission on September 2, with 3,689,715 valid ballots tallied from 60.3% of polling stations, gave the following numbers:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 2 partial results
Abdullah reiterated his allegations of massive fraud, and accused the Independent Election Commission of cooperating in "organized fraud". One of his campaign chiefs, Zalmai Younosi, said: "How can we accept a corrupt government funded by drugs and not respected by the world?"


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 2 partial results
The Electoral Complaints Commission reported that it had hired 70 extra people and would need at the very least two weeks, working overtime, in order to process the more than 2,600 reports of fraud, with over 650 of them large enough to "have material effect on the results".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 2 partial results
On September 3, 2009, when official preliminary results were originally planned to have been released, the IEC said the earliest possible date was now delayed to September 7.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 6 partial results
Results released on September 6, 2009, with ballots from 74.2% of polling stations tallied, gave the following count:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 6 partial results
Independent Election Commission officials said results from 447 of about 28,000 polling stations had been annulled after fraud investigations.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 8 partial results
Partial results released by the Independent Election Commission on September 8, with 5,469,289 valid ballots tallied from 91.6% of polling stations, showed Hamid Karzai over the 50% vote threshold needed win the election without a run-off:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 8 partial results
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) also reported that it had "quarantined" results from 600 polling stations where it suspected irregularities, and sent the list of stations to the ECC.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 8 partial results
Meanwhile, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said it had found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud", and that a recount and inspection should be done for any polling station where 600 or more ballots were cast, or where any single candidate received more than 95% of the votes. U.N.-appointed ECC chairman Grant Kippen said how many polling stations this would involve was unknown. The chief electoral officer of the IEC said it could take two to three months to comply with the ECC's recount and audit order.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 8 partial results
With Karzai passing the 50 per cent threshold but confrontated with allegations of massive fraud, a crisis emerged when a recount of ballots was ordered. That demand was challenged by the Afghan-dominated Independent Election Commission (IEC), which went on to publish the results, effectively giving Karzai the victory.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 12 partial results
The IEC had previously announced that it hoped to release full preliminary results, originally scheduled for September 3, on September 12, 2009, instead. On that date, however, they announced that the count was still not complete and that there would be another delay, with no date known.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 12 partial results
The partial results released by the IEC on September 12, tallied from the ballots of 92.8% of polling stations, showed Karzai slightly further in the lead and Abdullah slightly further lagging:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 12 partial results
Ballots from an additional 2.15% of polling stations were set aside because of irregularities at the 600 stations and excluded from the IEC's latest results on orders from the ECC. The IEC reported that hundreds of thousands of ballots had now been quarantined for audit. Election officials were unwilling to provide a time-scale for the final result, while observers said that investigation of the extensive fraud allegations could take months.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 12 partial results
The day was accompanied by a spate of violence in which at least 66 people were killed in gunbattles, suicide strikes, and roadside bombs. The dead included 24 civilians, 5 foreign soldiers, 7 Afghan soldiers, 12 Afghan policemen, 7 security firm guards, and at least 11 militants.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 12 partial results
Attacks occurred in all corners of the country – not only in the south and east, but also in the west and north that had been comparatively quiet until recent weeks around the election – signalling an expanding insurgency despite record numbers of U.S. and coalition troops in the eight-year war since the 2001 U.S. invasion.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 16 uncertified final result
On September 16, 2009, the IEC released its final uncertified results for the presidential election, with Hamid Karzai winning the election in one round with 54.6% of the vote:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 16 uncertified final result
The IEC claimed that voter turnout was 38.7%. However, anectdotal evidence from observers suggests it was much lower.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 16 uncertified final result
The results were not final until approved by the UN-dominated Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) which had already previously called for recounts at about 10% of polling stations, a process which could take months.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 16 uncertified final result
More than 2,800 complaints were registered with the ECC, including complaints involving polling day and the ballot counting process, with 726 allegations that the ECC categorized as serious enough to have affected the outcome.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 16 uncertified final result
The EU deputy chief observer, Dimitra Ioannou, alleged that 1.5 million ballots were suspect out of the 5.5 million ballots, representing 27% of the vote. According to Ioannou, 1.1 million of the votes for Karzai were suspect, along with 300,000 of the votes for Abdullah, and 92,000 of the votes for Bashardost. The EU deputy chief observer noted that if all the votes they deemed suspect were invalidated, Karzai's percentage would drop from 54.6% to 46%, while Abdullah's would rise from 27.7% to 31%, effectively forcing a run-off. The Karzai campaign denounced the announcement as "partial, irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 16 uncertified final result
The European Union election observer mission had previously declared the election process to be generally "good and fair", shortly after voting day.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, September, massive fraud alleged, sample-based audit, September 16 uncertified final result
The figures alleged by the EU deputy chief observer represented approximately 36%, 19%, and 18% of the votes counted for Karzai, Abdullah, and Bashardost, respectively. Invalidating the 1.5 million ballots would reduce the already low voter turnout figure to under 27%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility
The time frames mentioned at the end of September for a decision about a run-off did not appear to hold however: The recount of the random sample of 10% of suspect ballot boxes finally only began nine days later, on October 5, 2009. The UN stated that this recount process would take at least four days and that a final result would come next week.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility
On October 11, 2009, the recount of the 10% sample of suspect ballot boxes was reported to be completed, with results to be announced within a few days. The head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, stated that vote fraud in the Afghan election had been "widespread". He refused to reveal any numbers however, saying "any specific figures would be speculative".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility
On October 12, 2009, just days before results of the audit were expected to be announced, the chairman of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), Canadian Grant Kippen, told reporters that the ECC had misinterpreted the statistical analysis to determine the percentage of votes that would be voided for each candidate in ballot boxes deemed suspect. The week before, the ECC had stated that each candidate would lose votes in proportion to the number of fraudulent ballots cast for them in a random sampling of ballots boxes deemed suspect.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility
Under the new ECC interpretation, the commission divides suspect ballot stations into six categories of reason for suspicion, and disqualifies the same percentage from each candidate's total ballots within each category. According to an Associated Press article: "That means votes legitimately cast for a candidate could be canceled if they were found in ballot boxes that were deemed to have been stuffed in favor of another contender."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility
On the same day, in a blow for the UN-backed complaints body's credibility, one of the two Afghan members of the five-member ECC resigned, stating "foreign interference" on the part of the three Western members – an American, a Canadian, and a Dutch – of the complaints body.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
On October 17, 2009, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which had widely been expected to release its findings from its statistics-based audit, delayed the announcement again as ECC officials spent the day in meetings with Afghan election officials and double-checking calculations – and as U.S. and other Western officials pressured Karzai and Abdullah to state their acceptance of the findings before the ECC announcement and to work out a power-sharing deal.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
According to The New York Times, Karzai fielded a flurry of visits and phone calls from U.S. and other Western officials pressing him to accept the delayed U.N.-led audit results, enter into a power-sharing deal with Abdullah, or otherwise avert a crisis in the contended election. Among the American officials working the phones were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C. Holbrooke, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. In Afghanistan, U.S. Senator John Kerry, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, met with Karzai at least twice, and Abdullah once, stressing "the necessity of a legitimate outcome,"


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also called Karzai and Abdullah. French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, who had flown to Afghanistan "in the context of tension" caused by the election crisis, pressured both Karzai and Abdullah to "respect" the U.N.-backed audit process.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
Along with U.S. Senator John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad was also in Kabul that day for talks with Afghan leaders.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
The spokesman for Karzai's campaign, Wahid Omar, said they were concerned that the process was "being overshadowed by political discussions." Karzai's spokesman stated:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
"We will not be committed to a result that is decided on politically."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
The ECC's ruling was now expected October 18, according to The New York Times.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
On October 18, 2009, however, the BBC reported that the ECC results from the fraud investigation were now due "in the next few days". The Telegraph  that the ECC investigation was "understood" to have knocked Karzai's vote percentage down to between 47% and 49%, but that the official result "was delayed as the West asked the men to reach an agreement that would avoid another round of voting."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Waiting game and Western political pressure
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel indicated in veiled criticism of Hamid Karzai that it would be 'reckless' for the U.S. to commit more troops to Afghanistan until there is a 'true partner' to work with in Kabul. An expert familiar with the U.S. administration's thinking said there was no stomach for an election run-off after the "organisational headaches and risks to American troops" experienced in the August 20 ballot, and stated: "There is a clear preference for a deal."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, ECC fraud investigation findings reported to IEC
On October 19, 2009, The New York Times  that the ECC submitted its findings to the IEC that day, leaving the official announcement of results to the Independent Election Committee. However, an unnamed Western official said that the ECC investigation gave Karzai only 48% of the vote, under the 50% threshold required to avoid a run-off. The sample-based audit was reported to have found levels of fraud ranging from 71% to 96% in the six categories into which suspect ballot boxes had been divided.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, ECC fraud investigation findings reported to IEC
Karzai campaign spokesman Wahid Omar stated: "I don't think we can make any judgment based on the figures announced today."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, ECC fraud investigation findings reported to IEC
In a follow-up article the same day, The New York Times  that based on its own analysis using preliminary data from the ECC findings, 874,000, or 28%, of Karzai's 3,093,000 votes were ordered invalidated by the sample-based fraud audit, as were 185,000, or 18%, of Abdullah's votes. The ECC also completely discarded 210 ballot boxes because of fraud, reducing Karzai's total by 41,000 votes and Abdullah's by 10,807 votes. The ECC findings resulted in pushing Karzai's final vote total from 54% down to around 48–49%, and raising Abdullah's vote total from 28% up to 31%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, ECC fraud investigation findings reported to IEC
According to an  by The Times, overall, "some 1.26 million recorded votes were excluded from an election that cost the international community more than $300 million." The New York Times wrote, "fraud was so pervasive that nearly a quarter of all votes were thrown out. ".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, ECC fraud investigation findings reported to IEC
Concerns that Karzai might reject the ECC findings in direct conflict with his main backer for eight years, the United States, led to continued intense American and ally pressure on him to accept a power-sharing deal or face a second round run-off. Senator John Kerry made an unplanned stop in Kabul to meet Karzai in the presidential palace "to continue his discussions and consultations", according to the U.S. embassy. White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs said former U.S. army general Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was engaged in "delicate but extremely important" efforts to persuade Karzai to accept the ECC's findings.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, ECC fraud investigation findings reported to IEC
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said that she had spoken a number of times with Karzai in recent days, announced that Karzai would be making an announcement the next day, saying "He is going to announce his intentions ... But I don't want to pre-empt in any way President Karzai's statement, which will set the stage for how we go forward in the next stage of this." An unnamed diplomatic source also said that Karzai would be making a nationwide address flanked by U.S. Senator John Kerry and U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide, and claimed that Karzai was prepared to make concessions, such as forming a power-sharing coalition or agreeing to a run-off.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, ECC fraud investigation findings reported to IEC
However, according to The Times, one of Karzai's senior cabinet ministers, Ismail Khan, who had met with Karzai, said he had been told that a formal challenge will be issued: "He said he will complain against the ECC decision, and demand an investigation into why they cut his votes."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Acquiescence to a run-off on November 7
On October 20, 2009, under heavy U.S. and ally pressure, President Hamid Karzai announced his acquiescence to a run-off in the election. Flanked at a news conference by U.S. Senator John Kerry, the head of the powerful United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Kai Eide, the U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan, he announced a run-off to be held on November 7, stating: "Unfortunately, the election of Afghanistan was defamed. Any result that we were getting out of it was not able to bring legitimacy."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Acquiescence to a run-off on November 7
Karzai had initially indicated that he might reject the Western-dominated ECC's findings. According to The New York Times, Karzai's capitulation came after "all-out push" by U.S. administration officials and their European allies. In a meeting hastily arranged after the release of the ECC ruling the previous day, U.S. Senator Kerry and the U.S. ambassador Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry were at the presidential palace in Kabul. Karzai initially hesitated but ended up agreeing to accept the findings during the course of the two-hour meeting.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Acquiescence to a run-off on November 7
Besides Senator Kerry and General Eikenberry, Karzai was pushed hard by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who urged him in multiple calls over the last few days to be a "statesman" and accept the results, and by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who called Karzai three times in the last 48 hours, warning him that he could lose Western support if he did not accede to a second round.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Acquiescence to a run-off on November 7
Chiming in as well, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also called to warn Karzai that he would face dire problems with the coalition countries involved in Afghanistan if he did not cooperate. The American, British, and French ambassadors to Afghanistan joined U.S. Senator Kerry and the U.N.'s Kai Eide in flanking Karzai as he made his announcement at the news conference. U.S. administration officials had also used President Obama's pending strategy review on Afghanistan as leverage on Karzai, indicating that they would not make a decision on adding troops until Karzai agreed to accept the election outcome.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Acquiescence to a run-off on November 7
A senior Western official was quoted in  by The Times as saying: "No one wants a second round. It'll be expensive, bloody, and probably fraudulent."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, Acquiescence to a run-off on November 7
According to The Times, the certified results after the audit findings had left Karzai with 49.67% of the vote, just 0.33% below the 50% threshold to have avoided the run-off.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, October, ruling of the ECC awaited, run-off possibility, October 21 certified final result
On October 21, 2009, following the ECC's official audit findings and Karzai's heavily pressured acquiescence to a run-off, the IEC released its final certified results for the August 20 vote:


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
"It is hard to see how a second round can be credible."


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
On October 23, election authorities, with UN assistance, began delivering ballots for the November 7 run-off. UN planes flew ballots and voting kits to provincial capitals from where they would be delivered to thousands of polling stations by helicopter, truck, women and donkey.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
Because of insecurity and fraud concerns, 7,000 polling stations – nearly 30% of the 24,000 polling stations that had been set up for the August 20 vote – were cut for the run-off vote.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
There were also concerns that voter turnout for the run-off could be even lower than the "anemic" turnout of 30–33% in the first round on August 20.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
According to Gilles Dorronsoro, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment and an expert on Afghanistan and South Asia: "This time around, the weather will be worse, and the plain fact is, most Afghans don’t like their options enough to vote."


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
The UN told the IEC that 200 of its 380 district election chiefs in the first round had ignored procedures or been complicit in fraud and must not be hired again.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
"The international community cannot expect Afghans to risk their lives to participate in a sham election."


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
The run-off campaign period formally opened on October 24. Abdullah's campaign called for the dismissal of the three top officials of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), accusing them of having allowed widespread fraud in the first round of the election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
Both run-off candidates were reported to be frantically wooing Ramazan Bashardost, the presidential candidate that had placed third in the August 20 first round vote.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
Bashardost, who had campaigned against the corruption and greed of Kabul politicians and against the poverty of Afghans, said he had not decided who to support between the two – if anyone – saying the choice was between "the worst, and worse than the worst."


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
The Taliban reiterated their call for Afghans to boycott the election, denouncing it as a foreign-orchestrated sham.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election
On October 26, Abdullah called again for the sacking of Azizullah Lodin, the head of the Independent Election Commission, saying that he had "no credibility". Karzai rejected the call by Abdullah, stating "the changes would not be helpful to the elections and the country".


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election, Abdullah withdrawal from the run-off vote
On November 1, 2009, Abdullah Abdullah announced that he was withdrawing from the run-off vote, saying "I will not participate in the November 7 election," because his demands for changes in the electoral commission had not been met, and a "transparent election is not possible." Hamid Karzai had rejected Abdullah's demand that the head of the IEC resign.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election, Abdullah withdrawal from the run-off vote
Abdullah also said the Afghan people should not accept results of an election from the current election commission, and stated that Karzai's government had not been legitimate since its mandate expired in May 2009.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election, Abdullah withdrawal from the run-off vote
Speculation immediately followed that the run-off election would be cancelled. Afghanistan was thrown into a crisis after the withdrawal of Abdullah, which in effect cleared the way for Karzai to retain power despite the accusations of fraud. A weakened Karzai administration, shorn of electoral legitimacy, would represent a major blow to the Western allies who considered to send more troops to fight the Taliban.


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election, Run-off cancelled and winner declared
The next day, on November 2, officials from the Independent Election Commission announced the cancellation of the November 7 run-off and declared Hamid Karzai the winner by default. According to The New York Times, the Afghan election commission and Karzai had been under intense pressure from the United States and its allies to cancel the run-off. Abdullah said the appointment had "no legal basis" and Afghans deserved a better government. He stated:


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election, Run-off cancelled and winner declared
"A government that is appointed by an illegitimate commission, a commission that has tainted its own legitimacy, cannot bring the rule of law to the country, it cannot fight the corruption."


2009 Afghan presidential election, November 7 run-off election, NDI data browser
On December 17, 2009, the National Democratic Institute opened up an Afghanistan election data browser to the public. This tool allows users to browse the raw vote count from the 2009 presidential election on a national view and quickly study details on lower (provincial, district, and even polling center) levels.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference
The United States is widely seen to have an enormous stake riding on the outcome of the election in Afghanistan. While U.S. officials have taken great pains to repeatedly assert neutrality, there are many perceptions and allegations of U.S. interference and manipulation in Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference
Many in Afghanistan perceive the U.S. to have favoured Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah over Hamid Karzai.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference
Four prominent Afghan politicians, including Ghani and Abdullah, were in attendance at U.S. President Obama's inauguration in January. Karzai, however, was not. Media reports began appearing that suggested that the U.S. was eager for a change at the top in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai was also angered when the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, appeared beside Ghani and Abdullah at news conferences in June, ahead of the election, though Eikenberry stressed impartiality in his remarks. After Karzai did not show up at the first televised debate – against Abdullah and Ghani – the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan published an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for "serious debate among the candidates" in Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference
All these developments were viewed by many in Afghanistan as a message about which candidates the U.S. now preferred to have in power in Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference
Some of Karzai's rivals have alluded that Karzai is extremely concerned about foreign interference in Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference
"He considers everybody part of that big plot," Abdullah said. "In the meetings with elders and political leaders who have talked and spoken to me, he says this, 'We should unite. You know, there are plots, Americans, British,' and so on and so forth."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference
Both Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani have told people privately that the United States gave them the green light to run for president, according to a former U.S. official in Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Allegations of U.S. manipulation
As the first installments of vote counting results were being released, about a week after election day, Ramazan Bashardost, who ran third in exit polls, contended that the U.S. was playing a role in manipulating the outcome, in order to use a contested situation for its plans to broker a deal among the leading candidates. Others have made the same contention.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Allegations of U.S. manipulation
A TIME  that came out just after the election did suggest that a contested election outcome could "suit the U.S. purpose."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Allegations of U.S. manipulation
Some support for Bashardost's allegation may be seen in the U.S.-funded pre-election polls, one conducted by what Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News,  as "an outfit called Glevum Associates, which appears from its website to be a military contractor engaged in producing psychological operations data as part of a U.S. Army counterinsurgency program, the Human Terrain System," and the other by the International Republican Institute, a "pro-democracy group affiliated with the Republican Party and financed by the American government."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Allegations of U.S. manipulation
In their May 3–16, 2009 poll, the International Republican Institute found that Bashardost placed higher than Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani in favorability amongst Afghans, and that Bashardost and Ghani both came in at the very same level of support, 3%, when Afghans were asked who they would vote for president in an open-ended question. Yet their July 16–26 survey asked a series of questions that quite specifically included Ghani, but left Bashardost out for some reason:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, New chief executive position
U.S. officials have also made clear, even before the election, that – regardless of who won the Afghan election – Washington planned to use the leverage of the military force and financial resources at its command to extensively reorganize the Afghan government according to U.S. plans. The U.S. would push for a new non-elected "Chief Executive" position to be inserted under the President, with the appointee taking over all the day-to-day operations of the country.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, New chief executive position
Ashraf Ghani has widely been characterized as the U.S. favourite for appointment to that position. (Another mention was Zalmay Khalilzad.) Ghani has had discussions with U.S. officials, including both the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, and has denied turning down the job offer. He told reporters a few days before the election: "I've been approached repeatedly; the offer is on the table. I have not accepted it."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, New chief executive position
Other plans by the U.S. Defense and State departments also call for the installation of American "mentors" and liaisons inside Afghan government ministries in Kabul, a policy that was heavily used in the early years of the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, New chief executive position
The powerful, non-elected "chief executive" position envisaged for insertion into the Afghan government was characterized by a senior White House official as "a prime minister, except not prime minister because he wouldn’t be responsible to a parliamentary system."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, New chief executive position
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said that installing a "shadow prime-minister" would pose constitutional problems, but said: "I know that in Washington this idea has strong supporters."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
The day after the election, a tense meeting took place between the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, and Afghan president Hamid Karzai, with sources describing the meeting as "a dramatic bust up" and "explosive". to The Times, Holbrooke was already raising the possibility of a run-off, causing Karzai to accuse the U.S. special envoy of trying to force a second round "against the interests of Afghanistan".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
The U.S. special envoy also met with Karzai's rival, Abdullah Abdullah, after the election. The discussion between Holbrooke and Karzai was said to have been noticeably briefer than Holbrooke's meeting with Abdullah.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
On August 29, it was announced that the envoys from the United States, Britain, France, and Germany would meet in Paris to discuss the Afghan elections. According to The Times, a French official said that Holbrooke wanted a run-off in order to chasten Karzai and show him his power was limited.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
Reacting to reports that the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan wanted the vote to go to a second round for the sake of credibility, the IEC said the result is an Afghan issue:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
"It is not up to Mr. Holbrooke to decide the first or the second round, this decision is up to the people of Afghanistan who have voted and the IEC is counting these votes."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
On September 3, 2009, envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and other Western countries met in Paris to discuss the Afghan elections and how to rescue their costly efforts. The Paris meeting was seen as an effort to garner support for the U.S. response to the election and pressure Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Western envoys to Afghanistan said to expect a run-off in the Afghan election, suggesting that one could occur if enough votes are invalidated.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
The U.S., European, and NATO leaders also declared in their Paris meeting that their Western military troops were staying in Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
In an interview with Le Figaro released on September 7, 2009, Hamid Karzai accused the United States of trying to undermine him in order to make him more malleable.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
On September 13, 2009, the Sunday Telegraph reported that a "stormy meeting" between U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, former U.S. general Karl Eikenberry, and President Karzai had occurred the previous week. "Don't declare victory," warned the ambassador, on the instructions of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Telegraph reported that the Afghan president had refused to meet American officials since then.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
On September 15, 2009, the top U.S. diplomat to the United Nations mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Peter Galbraith, was  ordered out of the country by the head of the mission, U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide, following a heated disagreement over the American diplomat's demands for a wholesale recount that would virtually ensure a run-off. According to diplomatic sources, Galbraith – a close friend of the U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke – wanted the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to annul results from 1,000 of the nationwide total of about 6,500 polling centres and to recount results from another 5,000. Eide, on the other hand had been seeking only a recount of some 1,000 polling centres. UN officials suggested that Mr. Galbraith's position was representative of the U.S. stance, while Mr. Eide's echoed those of the European missions in Kabul.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
According to The Times, the IEC were preparing on September 8 to announce results for the last 15% of ballots, mostly from the controversial areas of the south and Badghis province in the north that were expected to return big majorities for Karzai, when Galbraith stepped in and forced them not to announce those results.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
At a meeting with IEC officials on September 13, Galbraith "laid into the commissioners, in front of the donors and observers" and demanded to know why they had not yet started printing ballot papers in preparation for a run-off.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
On September 30, 2009, The Times  that the U.S. diplomat was fired from the UN mission in Afghanistan. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, said he dismissed Galbraith "in the best interests of the mission" after the Karzai government had told the UN that it was unwilling to deal with the American in the future.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
The Times also revealed that UN Special Representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide had lobbied hard behind the scenes against the appointment of Galbraith as his deputy, but that the United States had pushed Ban Ki Moon to appoint Galbraith, a close friend and ally of Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a run-off
In October 2009, numerous news articles, such as  by The New York Times and  by the Associate Press, described the extraordinary American efforts, in concert with allies, over multiple days to pressure Hamid Karzai into acceding to run-off vote. On October 20, caving in to the relentless U.S. arm-twisting, he reluctantly acquiesced.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On September 13, 2009, the Sunday Telegraph  that American officials were making frantic efforts to force President Hamid Karzai into a power-sharing deal against his wishes, stating that "US officials have made little secret of their wish to see his wings clipped". In what one official in Kabul described as "turmoil" behind the scenes, Western diplomats were attempting to convert the election crisis into an opportunity for their purposes by forcing Karzai to share power in government with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and "reformist ministers", and accept a diminished role for the presidency.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
Intense Western diplomatic pressure was also being exerted on Abdullah Abdullah to cut a deal. According to The Telegraph, the fear is that if Karzai defies Washington and appoints his own choice of allies to key ministerial roles, he would be more "difficult for the West to influence".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On September 27, 2009, it was reported that the United States and other NATO countries with military forces in Afghanistan had indicated to Hamid Karzai's government that they expected he would remain in office for another five-year term.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
The U.S. Secretary of State and foreign ministers of the countries, meeting in New York on September 25, 2009, with U.N. Special Representative Kai Eide and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta, reached "consensus" in Spanta's presence that Hamid Karzai would probably "continue to be president" of Afghanistan, whether by winning a run-off or as a result of having won more than 50% of the ballots in the disputed August 20 elections. The electoral fraud investigations by the Electoral Complaints Commission had not yet been completed.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On October 15, 2009, Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan under George W. Bush, arrived in Kabul from Washington D.C. A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said Khalilzad was there as a "private citizen" and that he was not representing the United States government. Earlier in the year Khalilzad was widely discussed as an American favorite to assume a powerful, unelected "CEO" position that U.S. officials hoped to create inside the Afghan government. A Western official said Khalilzad had come on the invitation of Mr. Karzai, but a spokesman for Karzai's campaign denied that. In an appearance on Afghan television, Khalilzad indicated that he had come to help Afghans during a difficult election process, but an official in Mr. Abdullah's campaign said they did not want his assistance, saying "We do not need any broker."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On October 17, 2009, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which had widely been expected to release its findings from the statistics-based audit, delayed the announcement again as U.S. and ally envoys pressured Karzai and Abdullah to state their acceptance of the findings before the ECC announcement and to work out a power-sharing deal. A senior American official made the point of stating that Karzai and Abdullah together won more than 70% of the votes in the first round, ensuring the credibility of a government in which they shared power. A Karzai spokesman indicated that both foreign and Afghan officials were proffering formulas for power sharing, but that Karzai had rejected them and would not discuss power sharing until after a winner is declared. Abdullah also reiterated that he would consider negotiating after the results were announced.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On October 18, 2009, The Telegraph  that the ECC results were being "delayed as the West asked the men to reach an agreement that would avoid another round of voting." In veiled criticism of Hamid Karzai, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made clear that the U.S. would not send more troops to Afghanistan until there is a 'true partner' to work with in Kabul. An expert familiar with the U.S. administration's thinking suggested there was no longer any stomach for an election run-off after the "organisational headaches and risks to American troops" brought by the August 20 ballot, and stated: "There is a clear preference for a deal."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner stated that Karzai and Abdullah were ready to "work together" to find a settlement. A Western diplomat in Kabul said: "The idea now is to reach an agreement in which Karzai's victory at the first round is accepted ..."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
Following the flurry of last-minute phone calls, visits, and statements that U.S. and other Western officials made to Karzai, on October 19, 2009, The New York Times reported an unnamed Western official saying: "In the last 72 hours, I think even Karzai got the message. ".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
Demonstrations supporting Karzai took place in Kandahar, in the south of Afghanistan and in Ghazni province in the center of the country. In the district of Spin Boldak, around 3,000 demonstrators gathered in a market, shouting: "We don't want foreigners to interfere in our election."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
Ali Shah Khan, a tribal leader from the area, said the protesters believed that foreigners were deliberately delaying the election results, and stated: "The foreign countries want a weak leader for Afghanistan. After that they can do whatever they want."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On October 19, 2009, the ECC communicated its fraud investigation result to the IEC, with its unofficially released findings stripping approximately a million votes from Karzai – and bringing his vote share slightly below the critical 50% threshold required to win without a run-off. The continued concerns that Karzai and the IEC, whose members he appointed, might reject the ECC's findings, resulted in continuation of the intense American and ally efforts to pressure Karzai into accepting a power-sharing deal or face a run-off vote.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
According to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Senator John Kerry made an unplanned stop in Kabul to meet Karzai in the presidential palace "to continue his discussions and consultations". Meanwhile, according to White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, former U.S. army general Karl Eikenberry who commanded U.S. and ally forces in Afghanistan in 2005–2007, was also engaged in "delicate but extremely important" efforts to persuade Karzai to accept the U.N. panel's ruling.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, stating that she had spoken with Karzai a number of times in recent days, announced that Karzai would be making an announcement the next day, saying "He is going to announce his intentions ... I am very hopeful that we will see a resolution in line with the constitutional order in the next several days. But I don't want to pre-empt in any way President Karzai's statement, which will set the stage for how we go forward in the next stage of this." A diplomatic source told The Times that Karzai would make a nationwide address flanked by U.S. Senator John Kerry and U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide, claiming that Karzai was prepared to make concessions, such as agreeing to a run-off or forming a power-sharing coalition.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On the other hand, The Times  that one of Karzai's senior cabinet ministers, Ismail Khan, who had met with Karzai, said he had been told that a formal challenge will be issued: "He said he will complain against the ECC decision, and demand an investigation into why they cut his votes."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
According to one analysis on October 20, 2009,  by Tom Coghlan in The Times, the U.S. did not want a run-off to take place, but, rather, was trying to push Karzai into entering a power-sharing deal with his rival, in order to keep him in office but with a "weakened mandate".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On October 20, 2009, after Karzai caved in to intense U.S. and ally pressure that a senior U.S. administration official described as a "full court press", and acceded to a run-off, diplomats said the efforts to get the two men to join forces would now intensify.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On October 21, 2009, U.S. officials, including a U.S. defence official, emphasized that a power-sharing agreement remained a strong possibility as a way of resolving the crisis without going through with the run-off that had just been announced the day before.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, U.S. efforts to force a power-sharing deal
On October 25, 2009, Karzai and Abdullah, responding to questions in separate interviews on U.S. television, both rejected a power-sharing deal before the run-off vote. Karzai, responding to questions in a CNN interview, stated that such a deal would be "an insult to democracy". Abdullah, responding to questions on Fox News, ruled out a deal ahead of the run-off, and, in another interview on CNN, stated he had "absolutely no interest" in joining the government if Karzai won, saying that he would not be "part of the same deteriorating situation". The New York Times wrote that such a coalition would provide the U.S. and NATO with political cover for the continued presence of their military forces "because they would be backing a government that had the support of a vast majority of Afghans."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Accusations of foreign interference from within the ECC
On October 12, 2009, one of the two Afghan members of the Western-dominated Electoral Complaints Commission resigned over "foreign interference".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Accusations of foreign interference from within the ECC
Maulavi Mustafa Barakzai, a judge who ad been appointed to the panel by the Afghan Supreme Court, stated that his resignation was due to the fact that the three UN-appointed Western officials on the panel – an American, a Canadian, and a Dutch – were "making all the decisions on their own" and that Afghans had little input in its decisions.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Accusations of foreign interference from within the ECC
Barakzai's resignation left the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) with only one Afghan member and three officials from countries with foreign military troops in Afghanistan. The ECC is led by one of the three foreign officials, chairman Grant Kippen.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Accusations of foreign interference from within the ECC
Karzai said that the resignation Barakzai "cast serious doubt" on the work of the commission.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Perceived U.S. interference, Accusations of foreign interference from within the ECC
Mustafa Barakzai, a Supreme Court Judge who was one of two Afghans on the commission, resigned on Monday claiming foreigners were "interfering" in its work. Supporters of Abdullah claimed that Karzai was somehow behind Barakzai's sudden resignation.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Accusations of a United Nations cover-up
U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, fired from his UN post by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon on September 30, 2009, after accusing his former boss, UN special envoy Kai Eide, of helping cover up electoral fraud and being biased in favor of Hamid Karzai, further accused the UN of fabricating the reason for his dismissal and of helping to cover up massive electoral fraud committed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Accusations of a United Nations cover-up
In his statements on October 4, 2009, the American diplomat characterized the Afghan election as a "train wreck", and claimed: "As many as 30% of Karzai's votes were fraudulent, and lesser fraud was committed on behalf of other candidates."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Accusations of a United Nations cover-up
Galbraith told the Washington Post that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's final instruction before firing him was: "Do not talk".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Accusations of a United Nations cover-up
On October 11, 2009, Kai Eide referred to Galbraith's allegations as "personal attacks" against his integrity, adding they have "affected the whole election process."


2009 Africa Trophy
The 2009 Africa Trophy was the first edition of rugby union intermediate African championship for national teams.


2009 Africa Trophy, South Zone
The tournament was played in Gaborone, Botswana. It was also of the first two of division one of south section of 2008 CAR Development Trophy.


2009 African Fencing Championships
The 2009 African Fencing Championships were held in Dakar, Senegal from 6 to 9 August.


2009 African Handball Champions League
The 2009 African Handball Champions League was the 31st edition, organized by the African Handball Confederation, under the auspices of the International Handball Federation, the handball sport governing body. The tournament was held from October 21–30 at the Palais des Sports in Yaoundé, Cameroon, contested by 11 teams and won by Groupement Sportif des Pétroliers of Algeria.


2009 African Handball Champions League, Draw
HC Héritage Primeiro de Agosto Sahel de Douala Stade Mandji


2009 African Judo Championships
Alaa El Idrissi Is a Judoka Originally From Morocco, Born 31 October 1987 in Casablanca.


2009 African Judo Championships
The 2010 African Judo Championships were the 30th edition of the African Judo Championships, and were held in Mauritius from 30 April to 3 May 2009.


2009 African Junior Athletics Championships
The 2009 African Junior Athletics Championships were held in Bambous, Mauritius from 30 July to 2 August. There were 40 events in total, of which 20 were contested by male athletes and 20 by female athletes. Multiple gold medallists Caster Semenya and Amaka Ogoegbunam broke championships records, but also created controversy at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics later that year. Semenya was asked to take a gender test and Ogoegbunam tested positive for anabolic steroids.


2009 African Nations Championship
The 2009 African Nations Championship was the first edition of the African Nations Championship in football. The tournament took place in Ivory Coast from 22 February to 8 March 2009. Thirty countries attempted to qualify for the tournament.


2009 African Nations Championship, Group stage, Tie-breaking criteria
Where two or more teams end the group stage with the same number of points, their ranking is determined by the following criteria:


2009 African Nations Championship, Group stage, Group B
NB: Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac was sent to the stands in the 82nd minute for unsporting behaviour.


2009 African Nations Championship Final
The 2009 African Nations Championship Final was a football match held on 8 March 2009, and was the culmination of the inaugural tournament organised by CAF, aimed at players playing in their domestic leagues. The final was contested by DR Congo and Ghana, who had met earlier in the group stage, where Ghana ran out 3–0 winners. However, this was not to be the case, as DR Congo comfortably won 2–0 to record their first triumph in a continental competition since the 1974 African Nations Cup, where, as Zaire, they defeated Zambia 2–0 in the replay


2009 African Nations Championship qualification
The qualification phase for the 2009 African Championship of Nations began in March 2008. These games did not count towards the FIFA rankings.


2009 African Nations Championship squads
The following is a list of squads for each nation competing at the 2009 African Nations Championship in the Ivory Coast. The tournament started on 22 February 2009. The final took place in Abidjan on 8 March 2009. The tournament's rules state that each team's squad must consist of players playing in their national league.


2009 African Rally Championship
The 2009 African Rally Championship season was the 29th season of the African Rally Championship. The season consisted of five rallies, beginning on February 20, with the Rally of Tanzania, and ending on August 30 with the conclusion of the Zimbabwe Challenge Rally. Zimbabwe's James Whyte won the championship, winning two of the five rallies during the season.


2009 African U-17 Championship
The 2009 African U-17 Championship was a football competition organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The tournament took place in Algeria. The top four teams qualified for the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup. Nigeria, automatically qualified as the hosts, didn't qualify for the Finals, although if they qualified for the Finals and went on to reach the semi-finals, then the teams who finished third in their respective groups would have met in a playoff for the fourth and final place in the 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup.


2009 African U-17 Championship, Group stage, Group B
After the group ended, Niger was ejected from the competition for fielding an over-aged player. Their results were expunged from the standings.


2009 African U-17 Championship qualification, Preliminary round
The first leg matches were played on either 11, 12, 13 or 15 August 2008. The second leg matches were played on either 25 or 26 August 2008. The winners advanced to the First Round.


2009 African U-17 Championship qualification, First round
The first leg matches were played on either 29, 30 and 31 August, except for the Zambia vs Namibia match, which was played on 6 September. The second leg matches were played on 12, 13 or 14 September 2008. The Angola vs Botswana matches were played on 14 September (first leg), and 26 September (second leg). The winners advanced to the Second Round.


2009 African U-17 Championship qualification, Second round
The first leg matches were played on 8 and 9 November. The second leg matches were played on 22 and 23 November. The winners qualified for the Finals.


2009 African Union base bombings in Mogadishu
Two large-scale attacks against AMISOM soldiers carried out by al-Shabaab suicide bombers in Mogadishu, Somalia occurred in 2009. In total 32 people, including 28 AMISOM soldiers were killed and 55 people were injured by the two bombings.


2009 African Union base bombings in Mogadishu, 22 February attack
On 22 February 2009, was carried out by Al-Shabaab. against the base of the African Union Mission to Somalia in Mogadishu. The attack, carried out by one suicide bomber in a car and one on foot, left 11 Burundian soldiers dead and 15 others seriously hurt. The car bomber was a Somali contractor who had easy access to the base.


2009 African Union base bombings in Mogadishu, 17 September attack
On 17 September 2009, twin suicide bombings occurred at Aden Adde International Airport, the headquarters of AMISOM, in Mogadishu, killing 17 soldiers. The bombers were able to enter the base using two stolen white UN cars and struck a meeting between the AMISOM troops and the Transitional Federal Government. Brigadier General Juvenal Niyoyunguruza of Burundi, the deputy head of AMISOM, was killed in the blast, while the mission's Ugandan commander, General Nathan Mugisha, was wounded. Of the dead peacekeepers, 12 were Burundian and five were Ugandan. Four Somali civilians also died in the attacks, which wounded another 40 people.


2009 African Union base bombings in Mogadishu, 17 September attack, Aftermath
Shelling by both al-Shabaab and AMISOM after the bombings killed 19 Somali civilians.


2009 African Women's Handball Champions League
The 2009 African Women's Handball Champions League was the 31st edition, organized by the African Handball Confederation, under the auspices of the International Handball Federation, the handball sport governing body. The tournament was held from October 21–30 at the Palais des Sports in Yaoundé, Cameroon, contested by 8 teams and won by Atlético Petróleos de Luanda of Angola.


2009 African Women's Youth Handball Championship
The 2009 African Women's Youth Handball Championship was the 2nd edition of the tournament, organized by the African Handball Confederation, under the auspices of the International Handball Federation and held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast from September 26 to 30, 2009.


2009 African Women's Youth Handball Championship
Angola was the champion and the tournament qualified the top four teams to the 2010 world championship.


2009 African Women's Youth Handball Championship, Preliminary round
The three teams played in a round robin system with the top two playing the final.


2009 African Youth Championship
The 2009 African Youth Championship is a football tournament for under 20 players. It was held in Rwanda from 18 January until 1 February 2009. It also served as qualification for the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup.


2009 African Youth Championship, Qualification, Preliminary round
The first leg was played on either the 18, 19 or 20 April 2008. The second leg was held on either the 2, 3 or 4 May 2008. The winners advanced to the First Round.


2009 African Youth Championship, Qualification, Preliminary round
Congo, Nigeria, Zambia, Gambia, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Cameroon, Benin, Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Ghana, Angola, Gabon, South Africa and Burkina Faso all received byes to the First Round.


2009 African Youth Championship, Qualification, First round
The First Round first leg matches were held on the 27, 28 and 29 June 2008. The second legs were held on the 11, 12 and 13 July 2008. The winners qualified for the Second Round.


2009 African Youth Championship, Qualification, Second round
The first legs were played on the 26, 27 and 28 September. The second legs were played on the 11, 12 and 13 October. The winners qualified for the Finals.


2009 African Youth Championship, Qualification to FIFA U-20 World Cup
The four best performing teams qualified for the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup.


2009 African Youth Championship, Qualification to FIFA U-20 World Cup
Egypt failed to advance to the semifinals, but qualified as hosts.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy
The Aftonbladet–Israel controversy refers to the controversy that followed the publication of a 17 August 2009 article in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, one of the largest daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. The article revealed that Israeli troops harvested organs from Palestinians who had died in their custody. Sparking a fierce debate in Sweden and abroad, the article created a rift between the Swedish and the Israeli governments. Israeli officials denounced the report at the time and labelled it anti-Semitic.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy
Written by Swedish freelance photojournalist Donald Boström, the article's title was Våra söner plundras på sina organ ("Our sons are being plundered for their organs"). It presented allegations that in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, many young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by Israeli forces and their bodies returned to their families with organs missing.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy
The Israeli government and several US representatives condemned the article as baseless and incendiary, noted the history of antisemitism and blood libels against Jews and asked the Swedish government to denounce the article. The government refused, citing freedom of the press and the Swedish constitution. Swedish ambassador to Israel Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier condemned the article as "shocking and appalling" and stated that freedom of the press carries responsibility, but the Swedish government distanced itself from her remarks. The Swedish Newspaper Publishers' Association and Reporters Without Borders supported Sweden's refusal to condemn it.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy
The former warned of venturing onto a slope with government officials damning occurrences in Swedish media, which may curb warranted debate and restrain freedom of expression by self-censorship. Italy made a stillborn attempt to defuse the diplomatic situation by a European resolution condemning antisemitism. The Palestinian National Authority announced that it would establish a commission to investigate the article's claims. A survey among the cultural editors of the other major Swedish newspapers found that all would have refused the article.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy
In December 2009, a 2000 interview with the chief pathologist at the L. Greenberg National Institute of Forensic Medicine Yehuda Hiss was released in which he had admitted taking organs from the corpses of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without their families' permission. Israeli health officials confirmed Hiss's confession but stated that such incidents had ended in the 1990s and noted that Hiss had been removed from his post.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy
The Palestinian press claimed the report "appeared to confirm Palestinians' allegations that Israel returned their relatives' bodies with their chests sewn up, having harvested their organs".


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy
Several news agencies reported that the Aftonbladet article had claimed that Israel killed Palestinians to harvest their organs, although the author, the culture editor for Aftonbladet, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes denied that it had made that claim.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
In August 2009, Aftonbladet ran an article by freelance writer Donald Boström in its culture section. The article opened by mentioning arrests related to a suspected money-laundering and organ-trafficking operation involving rabbis, politicians and civil servants in New Jersey and New York. Briefly introducing the problem of the illegal organ trade worldwide, Boström then related that he heard and saw things during his stay in the Palestinian territories in 1992, during the First Intifada.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
A photograph accompanying the article depicted a cadaver with a line of stitches on the torso, identified as that of Bilal Ghanem, who was 19 when he was killed by IDF soldiers on 13 May 1992. The Ghanem family was not interviewed for his article, but Boström described his impressions of Ghanem's burial, which he attended:


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
Together with the sharp noises from the shovels we could hear occasional laughter from the soldiers who, as they waited to go home, exchanged some jokes. As Bilal was put in the grave his chest was uncovered and suddenly it became clear to the few people present just what kind of abuse he had been exposed to. Bilal was not by far the first to be buried with a slit from his abdomen up to his chin and speculations on the intent started.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
The next paragraph of the article quoted other Palestinian families and reads as follows:


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
The affected Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza were sure of what happened to their sons. Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors, relatives of Khaled from Nablus told me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin and the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who had all disappeared for a number of days only to return at night, dead and autopsied.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
– Why would they otherwise keep the bodies for up to five days before they let us bury them? What happened to the bodies during that time? Why are they performing an autopsy when the cause of death is obvious, and in all cases against our will? Why are the bodies returned at night? And why with a military escort? And why is the area closed off during the funeral? And why is the electricity cut off? There were lots of upset questions from Nafes uncle.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
Boström also wrote that unnamed UN staff members had told him that "organ theft definitely occurred" but that they had been "prevented from doing anything about it". He also reported the response of the IDF spokesperson as being that the allegations of organ theft were lies and that all Palestinian victims are routinely subjected to autopsy. Boström noted that according to Palestinian statistics for 1992, Bilal Ghanem had been one of 133 Palestinians killed and one of 69 going through postmortem examination. Boström concluded the article with his opinion: questions on what was happening remained unanswered and should be investigated.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
Meanwhile, family members of Bilal Ghanem, the Palestinian at the centre of the article's allegations, stated that they had never told Boström that Ghanem's organs had been removed. However, even though they never spoke to Boström and lacked any proof to confirm the allegations, they thought that Bilal had been deprived of some organs. In a follow-up editorial, Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin wrote that he approved the article for publication "because it raises a few questions" but acknowledged that the paper then had no evidence for its claims.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Article
In August 2009, Boström said that he did not know whether the claims were true but that he wanted them investigated; he made similar remarks at a November conference in Israel. Aftonbladet published an update noting the recent conviction of Yehuda Hiss, Chief Pathologist at Israel's Abu Kabir Institute, and two of his colleagues for improperly taking body tissue from a dead Israeli soldier in 2001. The paper acknowledged that the event did not prove the truth of the original allegations.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Government
The claim in the article sparked an angry reaction by Israeli Foreign Ministry official Yigal Palmor, who associated the article with mediaeval and 19th-century blood libels. On 23 August, the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, called for the Swedish government to condemn the article. An Israeli official quoted him as saying, "We're not asking the Swedish government for an apology, we're asking for their condemnation". The Israeli Finance Minister, Yuval Steinitz, said that a continued Swedish refusal to condemn the article might lead Israel to cancel a visit, scheduled for September, by the Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Government
Steinitz told the Israel Army Radio, "Whoever doesn't distance himself from this kind of blood libel might not be a welcome guest in Israel at this time. Until the Swedish government understands differently, the state of Israel, the state of the Jews, cannot ignore antisemitic expressions and modern recycling of medieval antisemitism". The Israeli Government Press Office, which accredits foreign journalists visiting the country, said that it was delaying its approval for an Aftonbladet correspondent and photographer who are seeking permission to enter the Gaza Strip by the maximum of 90 days allowed by regulations.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Government
Netanyahu said that history was replete with blood libel against Jews that have led to murder: "These matters cannot be taken lightly. We are not asking from the Swedes anything that we did not ask of ourselves". He reminded his ministers that in February 2009, after a satirical skit on the Israeli Channel 10 that had poked fun at the Christian belief that Jesus walked on water and Mary was a virgin had angered the Vatican, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had expressed regret and sorrow. Netanyahu commented: "I don't recall that Olmert's condemnation damaged press freedom in Israel".


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Government
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told Army Radio, "What angers us is that the Swedish government didn't condemn it but hastened to reprimand the ambassador who did find it right to condemn" the story, which he compared to historic anti-Semitic tracts. He accused Sweden of hypocrisy and called the affair "an odor of anti-Semitism". Lieberman noted the Swedish condemnation of the Muhammed cartoons affair in 2005 as well as Sweden's shutdown of an Internet site in the country that had posted the caricatures and the Swedish foreign minister's letter of apology to the president of Yemen for doing so. He had criticized Sweden for its silence earlier that year when the Malmö decided not to allow spectators to a Davis Cup match between Sweden and Israel.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Government
The Israeli Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, said that he would act to prevent the paper's reporters from receiving work permits in Israel. The Welfare and Social Services Minister, Isaac Herzog, said that Israel should take legal steps against the paper. When asked why Israel did not investigate the article's claims, Israel's envoy to Sweden, Benny Dagan, said: "Why don't we investigate why the Mossad and the Jews were behind the bombing of the twin towers? Why won't we investigate why Jews are spreading AIDS in the Arab countries? Why won't we investigate why Jews killed Christian children and took their blood and organs to bake matzot on Pessah?"


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Government
On 23 December 2009, after Israeli government officials admitted that organ harvesting had taken place in the 1990s, parliamentary hearings into the issue began in Israel's Knesset. Health officials testified that Israeli authorities had harvested organs from the dead bodies of Israelis and Palestinians in the 1990s for transplant purposes and said that the practice had since been ended. Ahmed Tibi, an Arab citizen of Israel, and a member of the Knesset, testified that he had evidence indicating that organ theft continued, citing the case of Fadul Ordul Shaheen, a Palestinian from Gaza who died of diabetes in 2009.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Government
Tibi related that after Shaheen's body was returned to his family with bleeding from the eyes and a deep cut through the body, the family said that both the corneas and kidneys were taken from his corpse. Tibi asked for the complaint to be investigated and also for a government probe on whether organs were being harvested from Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Yaacov Litzman, the deputy health minister, responded that he would investigate the case "with all seriousness".


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Media
Gideon Levy, in Ha'aretz, criticized the article and the Israeli response and that the article damaged "the fight against the occupation". Levy criticized Boström for not engaging in documentation, investigation and the presentation of proof. He noted, "There were cases in which the organs of Palestinians who had been killed were harvested without permission, something the [Abu Kabir] Institute of Forensic Medicine has done to others in Israel, for research purposes.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Media
But it's a long way from that to suspicion of trafficking in organs based only on the fact that in 1992 a dead Palestinian was found whose organs had been removed and his body sewn back up. And 17 years later a few Jews were arrested on suspicion of trafficking in human organs. That's not professional journalism, that's cheap and harmful journalism". However, he called Lieberman's response "ludicrous" and stated that it had diplomatically damaged Israel.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Media
The editorial line of Ha'aretz was much harsher: "Donald Bostrom, a veteran Swedish journalist, wrote a despicable, utterly baseless article". It stated, however, that Lieberman' reaction was "no less outrageous or inciting" than Bostrom's article: "Lieberman's impassioned and demagogic reaction has damaged Israel. It cheapened the Holocaust, blew the article out of proportion and caused an international uproar, pushing Sweden – which currently holds the presidency of the European Union – into an unnecessary confrontation with Israel".


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Media
Maariv published an article reporting that much of Boström's story had come from his book Inshallah (2001), which it stated to have been partly financed by the Swedish Foreign Ministry.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Civil society
Yoram Peri head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics and Society at Tel Aviv University, said the report touched a raw nerve among Israelis, who harbour deep distrust towards Europe and believe its newspapers to be pro-Palestinian. Agreeing on the lack of merit in the article, he suggests, however, that politicians had blown the controversy out of proportion for political purposes: "Lieberman expressed the feeling of many Israelis who do not understand the European narrative, and they think that any criticism comes from total misunderstanding of the Middle East, or because Europe is totally antisemitic and pro-Palestinian. Very few politicians, unfortunately, are sophisticated enough to distinguish between legitimate criticism and attacks by those with other motives".


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Civil society
Former diplomat Colette Avital said that Sweden should know the difference between freedom of the press and freedom of opinion: "freedom of expression is not unlimited, even in that beautiful northern country". She criticised Israeli official and media reactions as "blown out of all reasonable proportion" and the Israeli Foreign Minister for voicing "ridiculous and ultimately harmful threats" of cancelling the Swedish minister's visit or refusing entry to Swedish journalists.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Israeli reactions, Civil society
A support meeting of families of Israeli and Palestinian donors of organs and tissues on 26 August at Sourasky Medical Center, in Tel Aviv, discussed the report. Participants stressed a message that "organ donation is saving lives without any conditions" and called the report black propaganda against Israel.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Government
Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, the Swedish ambassador to Israel, strongly condemned the article: "The article in the Swedish newspaper is shocking and terrifying for us Swedes, as it influences the Israeli citizens.... The embassy can not emphasize more its disgust". The Swedish foreign ministry and the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, distanced themselves from the ambassador's statement and underlined that Sweden is a democracy with freedom of press and that state representatives should not comment on individual articles in newspapers.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Government
Mårten Schultz, senior lecturer in jurisprudence, thought that the appeals to freedom of speech were "attempts to use the rhetorically convincing status of the freedom of expression and press legislation in order to pursue a political agenda" and exhorted politicians and journalists to bring out and read the Freedom of the Press Act before they said what the government is not entitled to do.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Government
The Office of the Chancellor of Justice said that although, the government can not criticize the decision to publish, it might go further in its criticism of the article without violating the Constitution although that might be "inappropriate". The literal words by the Chancellor of Justice, Göran Lambertz, were the following, according to the Swedish news agency, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå: "It is not completely clear where the limits are. There is rather a lot one may do, according to the constitution, even if it were to be regarded as politically and legally inappropriate".


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Government
On 6 September 2009, Bildt announced the cancellation of a trip he planned to make to Israel on 11 September. There was some speculation in Israel and elsewhere that it was related to the controversy. However, Swedish officials denied that.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Legal complaints
The Swedish Chancellor of Justice, the sole attorney in enforcing violations to the conventions regarding freedom of the press and freedom of expression as well as the ombudsman on supervising government action both received two written requests asking for investigation into the matter. One asked the chancellor to judge whether the article "really would include anything that brings it beyond what the freedom of press allows – for example constitute hate speech." The second asked him to open an errand of supervision regarding the Swedish ambassador's statements, and on a principal level explain what an ambassador officially can express on behalf of the high office and the country. Aftonbladet was acquitted of all charges.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Legal complaints
Nils Funcke, a Swedish journalist and author on the Swedish constitution, predicted that the Swedish ambassador to Israel would be criticized for her initiative. The question, he said, was how sharp the criticism would be and how the government would react. Despite his deep concerns regarding the quality of journalism in the article, he called it "unthinkable" that the chancellor's office would take legal action on its contents.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Donald Boström and Aftonbladet
The author of the article, Donald Boström, spoke to Israel Radio on 19 August 2009 and said that he was worried by the allegations he reported: "It concerns me, to the extent that I want it to be investigated, that's true. But whether it's true or not – I have no idea, I have no clue". Boström told CNN that the purpose of his article was to call for an investigation into the claims about stealing organs in the early 1990s.


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Donald Boström and Aftonbladet
In an interview to the Arab media site Menassat, Boström said there was "no conclusive evidence" that organ harvesting was a systematic IDF practice but that there is a "collection of allegations and suspicious circumstances". He was quoted as saying, "The point is that we know there is organ trafficking in Israel. And we also know that there are families claiming that their children's organs have been harvested. These two facts together point to the need for further investigation".


2009 Aftonbladet Israel controversy, Swedish reactions, Donald Boström and Aftonbladet
The newspaper's editor, Jan Helin, said "I'm not a Nazi, I'm not anti-Semitic" and described himself as "a responsible editor who gave the green light to an article because it raises a few questions" but noted that Aftonbladet had no evidence that Israel practiced organ harvesting. Aftonbladet published a follow-up to Boström's article that defended his report and said that the organ-harvesting allegation "should be investigated, either to stop the relentless Palestinian rumors, or, if the rumors prove to be true, stop the trade in body parts". It called Bonnier's condemnation of the original article a "disgrace".