2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Background
This would be the last race in Formula One for Nico Rosberg at Williams and for Robert Kubica (replacing Alonso at Renault in 2010) at BMW Sauber. This would be the last race for Nick Heidfeld until the 2010 Singapore Grand Prix.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Background
As in Brazil, Kamui Kobayashi continued to race for Toyota as Timo Glock was ruled out after he was injured in a crash at the Japanese Grand Prix during qualifying.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
In keeping with FIA regulations that state the practice and qualifying sessions must be run under the same conditions as the race, the practice sessions were run in the late afternoon and early evening so as to simulate the transition between day and night.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
The sessions were dominated by the McLaren team, with Lewis Hamilton spending most of his time on or near the very top of the timing sheets. He set the early standard in the first session, producing a fastest lap of 1:43.939. Teammate Heikki Kovalainen struggled initially, but eventually set the fastest time of the second session – 1:41.307, two-tenths of a second faster than teammate Hamilton. – and retained his pace in the third.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
At Ferrari, both Kimi Räikkönen and Giancarlo Fisichella struggled, spending most of the weekend at the bottom of the timing sheets, though a pair of last-minute one-lap charges by Räikkönen saved the team from total embarrassment. Fisichella was less than impressed with Yas Marina's underground pit exit, claiming it was both very difficult and dangerous, despite it remaining incident-free.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
Robert Kubica stopped on the circuit halfway through the second practice session with a suspected engine failure. The Pole, down to the last of his eight racing engines, was running with a used engine at the time, thus preventing the need for him to take a grid penalty. Nick Heidfeld spent most of the sessions at the tail end – at one point unable to explain why he was over two seconds slower than Kubica – until his final runs in the last session, which elevated him into the top ten.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
Like Ferrari, Renault struggled all weekend. Unlike Ferrari, neither Fernando Alonso or Romain Grosjean were able to do much about it, simply unable to find speed around the circuit. Alonso, however commented that the Yas Marina circuit was enjoyable, stating that there was always something to do.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
Kamui Kobayashi continued to impress in what was only his second outing for Toyota, frequently out-pacing teammate Jarno Trulli, and at one point setting the third-fastest lap time. However, Kobayashi's program for the weekend consisted mostly of doing dummy qualifying runs, while Trulli was focusing on pace over an extended period, meaning the difference between the two drivers was not as great as it appeared to be.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
The Toro Rosso drivers continued their trend of being the very first out in the early sessions. Sébastien Buemi demonstrated that his pace in Japan and Brazil was no one-off, and he spent most of the practice sessions near the top of the timing sheets and was the first person to break the 1:40.000 barrier in the third practice session. Jaime Alguersuari was less receptive to the circuit than others and was over-shadowed by his teammate until a hydraulics problem sidelined him for the duration of the third session.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
Red Bull drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel also had strong sessions, hinting at a pace that would eventually show itself in qualifying. After Hamilton set a time a second faster than anyone else in the third session, it was Vettel who led the rest of the field in making up the gap, however both drivers would finish outside the top ten.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
Williams' Nico Rosberg echoed Alonso's sentiments that he liked the circuit, stating that every corner was 'unique'. However, both he and teammate Kazuki Nakajima had an inconsistent weekend, alternating between the bottom end of the top ten and running as low as fifteenth.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
Force India's Adrian Sutil commented that he preferred Abu Dhabi over Marina Bay in Singapore as it was easier to see around the Yas Marina circuit. After being limited by brake problems early in the first session, he eventually took to the circuit. Like teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi, his occasional bursts of speed were soon overrun by the other drivers.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Practice
Jenson Button spent most of first practice exchanging blows with Hamilton, responding to each of Hamilton's fastest laps with one of his own. The trend continued into the third session with Button prevailing, setting a 1:40.625, two-thousandths of a second quicker than Hamilton. Rubens Barrichello had a relatively anonymous string of practice sessions, finishing within the top ten on each occasion, but never quite having the pace of his teammate.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Qualifying
Lewis Hamilton was the fastest in the first qualifying session, becoming the first man to set a lap time of less than 1:40.000 with a 1:39.873. Fellow Briton Jenson Button was the only other driver who came close, with his best lap time half a second slower than Hamilton. For the third race of the season – after Luca Badoer in Valencia and Spa – a Ferrari qualified in twentieth and last place, with Giancarlo Fisichella finishing one second behind Kimi Räikkönen and two behind Hamilton. Joining Fisichella in an early elimination were the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi and the Renaults of Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean after Jaime Alguersuari relegated Alonso to fifteenth place in the final few minutes of the first session.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Qualifying
Hamilton once again topped the second session with another lap time under 1:40.000, though this time Sebastian Vettel was able to break the same barrier as well, the only other person to do so all weekend. By the time the second session had come around, night was falling over the circuit, and with it the track temperature dropped. Despite the cars carrying less fuel in the second session, the difference in lap times between Q1 and Q2 was noticeably smaller than at other races, with many of the drivers struggling to improve upon their first-session times.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Qualifying
Heikki Kovalainen came to a halt on the circuit with a gearbox failure, which would afford him a five-place penalty for the race. Elsewhere, the second Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen was eliminated, as were Jaime Alguersuari and Kazuki Nakajima. Kamui Kobayashi was also eliminated after qualifying twelfth, just one place behind his starting position in Brazil.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Qualifying
The third session was unique in that once the drivers left the pits, they stayed out for the duration; in previous races, they have gone out once at the start and once at the end, or simply waited until the final few minutes to set a time. This was attributed to the tyres, as it took several laps for the drivers to get either compound up to a working temperature. Lewis Hamilton remained in the pits while the other nine took to the circuit.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Qualifying
The lap times started falling as the drivers did several laps, with Jenson Button and Jarno Trulli exchanging lap times before Hamilton emerged and took the provisional pole. Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber both went faster, only for Hamilton to secure a front-row berth on his final lap with a 1:40.948 and leaving Vettel and Webber second and third respectively. Rubens Barrichello slotted into fourth, while Button edged out Trulli for fifth. The BMW Saubers of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld took seventh and eighth, followed by the Williams of Nico Rosberg in his final race for the Grove-based team, and Sébastien Buemi taking tenth on his twenty-first birthday.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber gave Red Bull their fourth one-two finish of the season, with Vettel finishing seventeen seconds ahead of his teammate.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
Lewis Hamilton led the race from the start, but did not open a singularly impressive lead as was expected, and Vettel stayed within a few seconds of him during the early phase of the race. There was contact between Rubens Barrichello and Webber in the first corner, with Barrichello losing a part of his front wing, which hurt his pace to begin with. The first lap was otherwise clean.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
Vettel leap-frogged Hamilton during the first round of stops before the McLaren pit wall reported that Hamilton had a problem with his right-rear brake. Hamilton was forced to retire the car after eighteen laps, as it was unsafe to continue given that the circuit contained three very large braking areas. It was briefly suggested that the problem may have been a faulty data logger that was showing a problem, but McLaren was still obliged to retire the car. The only other retirement of the race was Jaime Alguersuari during the pit stops.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
His in-lap had been slow and he made the mistake of pulling up in the Red Bull pit instead of the Toro Rosso garages. With Sebastian Vettel due in that lap, Red Bull were forced to send him back out. Alguersuari later claimed that when he was ready for the stop, his team were not. The Red Bull and Toro Rosso garages were located next to one another, with the pit crews in similar uniforms. Alguersuari retired when he returned to the circuit.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
From there, the race remained relatively incident-free. Jenson Button exited from his stop to find the Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, who was running on a one-stop strategy. Button, in a heavier car and with tyres that would take several laps to break in, was powerless to stop Kobayashi from simply driving around the outside of him at the giant hairpin at one end of the circuit. Kobayashi would run as high as third during the race before his stop, and would ultimately finish sixth, collecting three World Championship points in only his second race.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
His performance in Brazil and Abu Dhabi in particular impressed Toyota's management enough for him to be seriously considered for a full-time race seat in 2010 (although it subsequently transpired that Toyota withdrew from Formula One before the start of the 2010 season). Fellow Japanese driver Kazuki Nakajima finished in thirteenth, making him the only driver to race in every Grand Prix of the season without scoring a single point.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
Elsewhere, Giancarlo Fisichella was given a drive-through penalty and finished his final race for Ferrari a lowly sixteenth, ahead of only Adrian Sutil and Romain Grosjean. Ferrari teammate Kimi Räikkönen – in the final race for his first stint at the Maranello-based outfit, before his return at the 2014 Australian Grand Prix – had a similar struggle from eleventh on the grid, finishing down in twelfth behind fellow Finn Heikki Kovalainen. Ferrari's failure to score points meant that the team conceded third place in the Constructors' championship, closing their worst season since Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger drove for them in 1993.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
The final few laps saw Jenson Button begin to rapidly reel in the second-placed Mark Webber, whose rear tyres were steadily beginning to lose grip. Button caught up with him with six laps to go, and the final lap was one of the hardest-fought of the season. Both drivers made an error going into the chicane and hairpin, and while Button attempted to make a move on Webber going down the back straight, the Australian defended his line into the switchback.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
The move meant that Button had the racing line and came out of the ninth corner nose-to-tail with the Red Bull. Button drew alongside Webber in the run down to the bottom corner, forcing Webber to take a defensive line again, but the Red Bull driver held his line and managed to pull the car up in time and held on for second place despite a minor error at turn fourteen.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
At the front of the field, Sebastian Vettel won the race by seventeen seconds, securing the runner-up position in the championship from Barrichello, who went on to finish fourth ahead of Nick Heidfeld in BMW Sauber's final race. Kobayashi was sixth, scoring his first career points, with Toyota teammate Jarno Trulli taking seventh, and Sébastien Buemi closing out the points-scoring positions in eighth, four seconds ahead of the Williams of Nico Rosberg, also in his final race for his team.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Report, Race
This was the last race to feature pit stops for refueling, which had been re-introduced in 1994, as the regulations for 2010 had banned them. Jarno Trulli made the final refueling stop on lap 42. This was also the last race to use the 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points scoring system, introduced in 2003 and the last race to date for drivers Fisichella, Nakajima, and the constructors Toyota, BMW and Brawn GP.


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Classification, Qualifying
Cars that use the KERS system are marked with "‡"


2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Classification, Race
Cars that use the KERS system are marked with "‡"


2009 Acropolis International Basketball Tournament
The Acropolis International Tournament 2009 was a basketball tournament held in OAKA Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece, from August 24 until August 26, 2009. This was the 23rd edition of the Acropolis International Basketball Tournament. The four participating teams were Greece, Lithuania, Russia and Serbia.


2009 Acropolis Rally
The 2009 Acropolis Rally of Greece was the 56th running of the Acropolis Rally and the seventh round of the 2009 World Rally Championship season. The rally consisted of 17 special stages. Ford's Mikko Hirvonen took his first win of the season and Citroën Junior Team's Sébastien Ogier his first-ever podium position. Hirvonen's teammate Jari-Matti Latvala climbed back to third place after going off the road and dropping from first to 11th place on the first day.


2009 Acropolis Rally
Citroën's championship leader Sébastien Loeb crashed out from third place, and Dani Sordo broke his suspension while running second, right behind Hirvonen. Stobart M-Sport Ford's fifth-placed driver Henning Solberg crashed into the same rock as Sordo and also retired. Petter Solberg found himself Hirvonen's main challenger for the win, but also had to retire with a broken suspension.


2009 Acropolis Rally
With mechanical problems for Mads Østberg and Evgeny Novikov, who took his first-ever stage win in the event, Federico Villagra finished fourth, Conrad Rautenbach fifth and Khalid al-Qassimi sixth, which marked his career-best result. Østberg climbed back into the points on the last stage. Home country's Lambros Athanassoulas edged out Nasser Al-Attiyah to win the Production World Rally Championship category, and also collected a WRC point for eighth place overall.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election
The Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, 2009 took place on October 18, 2009 electing Gilles Taillon on the second ballot by a margin of two votes over Éric Caire.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, Background
After the results of the 2008 Quebec election, in which the ADQ went from being the official opposition, and 39 seats (41 MNA's had been elected in 2007, but two crossed the floor to the Liberals) to the traditional third-party role and seven seats, longtime leader Mario Dumont stepped down from the leadership of the party.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, Candidates, Éric Caire
Éric Caire, 43 the MNA for La Peltrie. He was elected in 2007, and has served as the Official Opposition's Shadow Minister of Health.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, Candidates, Christian Lévesque
Christian Lévesque, 39, the former MNA for Lévis. He was elected in 2007 and served as Official Opposition's Shadow Minister for the Treasury Board.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, Candidates, Gilles Taillon
Gilles Taillon, 63, former MNA for Chauveau, and former President of the ADQ and the Conseil du patronat du Québec. He served as Deputy Leader and the Official Opposition's Shadow Minister of Finance.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, Rejected candidates, Jean-François Plante
Jean-François Plante, former Montreal City Councillor (1998–2005) for the Vision Montreal Party, ADQ candidate and owner and host of Radio XTRM, an internet radio show. His campaign was rejected on the grounds the 1,000 signatures he had collected were not valid.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, Rules and deadlines
The new leader was elected by all party members through a preferential ballot cast electronically the new leader being announced in early October 2009. Interested parties must collect 1,000 signatures, including at least 60 in a dozen different regions of Quebec. They must also pay a deposit of $15,000.


2009 Action démocratique du Québec leadership election, Aftermath
Caire and Marc Picard quit the ADQ caucus shortly after Taillon's victory. Taillon himself resigned as leader less than a month after the leadership election, and was succeeded by Deltell.


2009 Adelaide Film Festival
The 4th Adelaide Film Festival took place in Adelaide, Australia, from 19 February to 1 March 2009. Katrina Sedgwick was again Festival Director. Jan Chapman received the 2009 Don Dunstan Award The poster this year depicts the iconic film festival eye character concept that was so successful in 2007.


2009 Adelaide Film Festival
The festival opened with My Year Without Sex directed by Sarah Watt and closed with Easy Virtue directed by Stephan Elliott. The festival presented 23 world premieres, 62 Australian premieres, 38 Australian films, 9 new Australian features from established and emerging filmmakers, and 143 films from over 49 countries. The Natuzzi International Award for Best Feature Film was won by the South Korean film Treeless Mountain, directed and written by So Yong Kim.


2009 Adelaide Film Festival, Competition, Jury
The following people were selected for the In Competition Jury:


2009 Adelaide Film Festival, Competition, In Competition
The following films were selected for the In Competition section:


2009 Adelaide Film Festival, Awards
The Natuzzi International Award for Best Feature Film was won by the South Korean film Treeless Mountain, directed and written by So Yong Kim.


2009 Adelaide Film Festival, Awards
The Audience Award for Best Feature was won by Samson & Delilah.


2009 Adelaide Film Festival, Awards
The Audience Award for Best Documentary was won by Kiran Bedi.


2009 Adelaide Film Festival, Awards
The Audience Award for Best Short was won by The Cat Piano.


2009 Adelaide Football Club season
The 2009 AFL season was the Adelaide Football Club's 19th season in the Australian Football League (AFL).


2009 Adelaide Football Club season
The captain for this season was Simon Goodwin, and the leadership group was Tyson Edwards, Brett Burton, Ben Rutten, Nathan van Berlo, Michael Doughty and Scott Stevens.


2009 Adelaide Football Club season, Playing list
Statistics are correct as of start of 2009 season. Flags represent place of birth.


2009 Adelaide Football Club season, NAB Cup
The despite an opening round loss to Geelong, the 2009 NAB Cup was not a total loss; Trent Hentschel made his return after 21⁄2 years off with a knee injury. The Crows lost to the Geelong Cats by 35 points, 1.17.8 (119) - 2.9.12 (84).


2009 Adelaide Football Club season, Home and away season
(In the table below, green rows are wins, red rows are losses. In the Score column Adelaide scores are always shown first.)


2009 Adelaide Sevens
The 2009 Adelaide Sevens, promoted as the International Rugby Sevens Adelaide 2009, was a rugby sevens tournament that was part of the IRB Sevens World Series in the 2008–09 season. It was the Australian Sevens leg of the series, held between 3 and 5 April at the Adelaide Oval in South Australia.


2009 Adelaide Sevens
South Africa retained their title, and took an almost unassailable lead in the 2008-09 IRB Sevens World Series, defeating rapidly improving Kenya in the final. England won the Plate, Samoa the Bowl and the US the Shield.


2009 Adelaide Sevens, Format
The teams were drawn into four pools of four teams each. Each team played the other teams in their pool once, with 3 points awarded for a win, 2 points for a draw, and 1 point for a loss (no points awarded for a forfeit). The top two teams from each group progressed to quarter-finals in the main competition, with the winners of those quarter-finals competing in cup semi-finals and the losers competing in plate semi-finals. The bottom two teams from each group progressed to quarter-finals in the consolation competition, with the winners of those quarter-finals competing in bowl semi-finals and the losers competing in shield semi-finals.


2009 Adelaide Sevens, Pool stages
The tournament started on the Friday night and Saturday with matches between teams in the same pool on a round robin basis. The following is a list of the recorded results.


2009 Adelaide Sevens, Knockout
Play on the last day of the tournament consisted of finals matches for the Bowl, Plate, and Cup competitions. The following is a list of the recorded results.


2009 Adelaide United W-League season
The 2009 season is Adelaide United Women's second season in the W-League.


2009 Adelaide United W-League season, Review, September
This season saw drastic squad changes after a disappointing inaugural season, including new signing Christina Papageorgiou taking the captaincy. However, Adelaide still struggled in the league failing to win a single game, and finished seventh ahead of the Newcastle Jets.


2009 Adelaide United W-League season, Review, March
Racheal Quigley was named Adelaide United 2009/10 Westfield W-League Most Valuable Player.


2009 Adelaide United W-League season, Players
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.


2009 Aegean Tennis Cup
The 2009 Aegean Tennis Cup was a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts. It was part of the Tretorn SERIE+ of the 2009 ATP Challenger Tour. It took place in Rhodes, Greece between April 27 and May 3, 2009.


2009 Aegean Tennis Cup, Champions, Men's doubles
Karol Beck /  Jaroslav Levinský def. Rajeev Ram /  Bobby Reynolds, 6–3, 6–3


2009 Aegean Tennis Cup, Singles entrants, Other entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2009 Aegean Tennis Cup – Doubles
Karol Beck and Jaroslav Levinský won in the final 6–3, 6–3, against Rajeev Ram and Bobby Reynolds and they became the first champions of this tournament.


2009 Aegean Tennis Cup – Singles
Benjamin Becker defeated his compatriot Simon Stadler in the final and won the title.


2009 Aegon Championships
The 2009 Aegon Championships (also known traditionally as the Queen's Club Championships) was a tennis tournament played on outdoor grass courts. It was the 107th edition of the event and was part of the ATP World Tour 250 series of the 2009 ATP World Tour. It took place at the Queen's Club in London, United Kingdom, from 8–14 June 2009.


2009 Aegon Championships
The singles draw was headlined by Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour Number 3, US Open and Indian Wells runner-up, Doha, Rotterdam and Miami champion Andy Murray, Memphis winner, Australian Open semifinalist and four-time Queen's Club champion Andy Roddick, and Australian Open quarterfinalist Gilles Simon. Also present were Acapulco runner-up, French Open quarterfinalist Gaël Monfils, Chennai and Zagreb winner Marin Čilić, James Blake, Marat Safin and Mardy Fish.


2009 Aegon Championships
The doubles draw was led by reigning Wimbledon champions, Rotterdam, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome and Madrid winners Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjić. Other seeded partnerships were 2008 US Open and 2009 Australian Open champions Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, Bruno Soares and Kevin Ullyett, and Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski.


2009 Aegon Championships, Finals, Doubles
Wesley Moodie /  Mikhail Youzhny defeated  Marcelo Melo /  André Sá, 6–4, 4–6, [10–6]


2009 Aegon Championships, Entrants, Seeds
* Seedings are based on the rankings as of 25 May 2009


2009 Aegon Championships – Doubles
Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjić were the defending champions, but lost in the second round to Simon Aspelin and Paul Hanley.


2009 Aegon Championships – Doubles
Wesley Moodie and Mikhail Youzhny won in the final 6–4, 4–6, [10–6], against Marcelo Melo and André Sá.


2009 Aegon Championships – Singles
Rafael Nadal was the defending champion, but chose not to participate due to a knee injury.


2009 Aegon Championships – Singles
Andy Murray won in the final 7–5, 6–4, against James Blake, becoming the first British champion at Queen's since 1938.


2009 Aegon Championships – Singles, Seeds
The top eight seeds receive a bye into the second round.


2009 Aegon Classic
The 2009 Aegon Classic is a tennis tournament being played on outdoor grass courts. It was the 28th edition of the event, known that year as the Aegon Classic,  It is taking place at the Edgbaston Priory Club in Birmingham, United Kingdom from 8 June until 14 June 2009. Thirteenth-seeded Magdaléna Rybáriková won the singles title.


2009 Aegon Classic, Finals, Doubles
Cara Black /  Liezel Huber defeated  Raquel Kops-Jones /  Abigail Spears, 6–1, 6–4


2009 Aegon Classic – Doubles
Cara Black and Liezel Huber were the defending champions and won in the final by beating Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears.


2009 Aegon Classic – Singles
Kateryna Bondarenko was the defending champion, but chose not to participate that year.


2009 Aegon Classic – Singles
Magdaléna Rybáriková won her maiden WTA tour title, defeating Li Na in the final 6–0, 7–6(7–2).


2009 Aegon Classic – Singles, Seeds
The top eight seeds receive a bye into the second round.


2009 Aegon International
The 2009 Aegon International was a combined men's and women's tennis tournament played on outdoor grass courts. It was the 35th edition of the event for the women and the 1st edition for the men. It was classified as a WTA Premier tournament on the 2009 WTA Tour and as an ATP World Tour 250 series on the 2009 ATP World Tour. The event took place at the Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club in Eastbourne, United Kingdom from June 13 through June 20, 2009.


2009 Aegon International, Finals, Men's doubles
Mariusz Fyrstenberg /  Marcin Matkowski defeated  Travis Parrott /  Filip Polášek, 6–4, 6–4


2009 Aegon International, Finals, Women's doubles
Akgul Amanmuradova /  Ai Sugiyama defeated  Samantha Stosur /  Rennae Stubbs, 6–4, 6–3


2009 Aegon International – Men's Doubles
This was the first edition of the men's doubles event at Eastbourne. Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski defeated Travis Parrott and Filip Polášek 6-4, 6-4


2009 Aegon International – Men's Singles
The men's singles event at the 2009 Aegon International tennis tournament was won by Dmitry Tursunov.


2009 Aegon International – Women's Doubles
Cara Black and Liezel Huber are the defending champions, but lost in the semifinals to Samantha Stosur and Rennae Stubbs


2009 Aegon International – Women's Singles
Agnieszka Radwańska was the defending champion, but lost in the quarterfinals to Virginie Razzano.


2009 Aegon International – Women's Singles
Caroline Wozniacki won the title, defeating Razzano in the final 7–6(7–5), 7–5.


2009 Aegon Trophy
The 2009 Aegon Trophy was a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor grass courts. It was part of the 2009 ATP Challenger Tour. It took place in Nottingham, Great Britain between 1 and 7 June 2009.


2009 Aegon Trophy, ATP entrants, Other entrants
The following players received wildcards into the singles main draw:


2009 Aegon Trophy, Champions, Doubles
Eric Butorac /  Scott Lipsky def. Colin Fleming /  Ken Skupski, 6–4, 6–4


2009 Aegon Trophy – Men's Doubles
Eric Butorac and Scott Lipsky defeated Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski in the final (6–4, 6–4).


2009 Aegon Trophy – Men's Singles
Brendan Evans won in the final 6–7(4–7), 6–4, 7–6(7–4), against Ilija Bozoljac.


2009 Aerobic Gymnastics European Championships
The 6th Aerobic Gymnastics European Championships was held in Liberec, Czech Republic in November 2009.


2009 Afghan avalanches
The 2009 Afghan avalanches occurred near Kabul, Afghanistan on 16 January 2009. At least ten people were killed and twelve vehicles and machinery used to clear the road of snow were swept away when the avalanche struck a highway. Forty people were rescued, eleven of whom were injured by the avalanches. The avalanches struck the Salang tunnel, the main highway linking southern and northern Afghanistan in the middle of the Hindu Kush mountains, at an altitude of 4,450 metres (14,600 ft). Searchers spent the next two days and beyond locating the victims.


2009 Afghan presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Afghanistan on 20 August 2009. The election resulted in victory for incumbent Hamid Karzai, who won 49.67% of the vote, while his main rival Abdullah Abdullah finished second with 30.59% of the vote.


2009 Afghan presidential election
The election was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and low awareness of the people about the election and election process and widespread ballot stuffing, intimidation, and other electoral fraud. A second round run-off vote, announced under heavy U.S. and ally pressure, was originally scheduled for 7 November 2009, but it was cancelled after Abdullah refused to participate, and Hamid Karzai was declared President of Afghanistan for another 5-year term.


2009 Afghan presidential election
The election was the second under the present constitution of Afghanistan and was held on the same day as elections for 34 provincial council seats. The Taliban called for a boycott of the election, describing it as a "program of the crusaders" and "this American process".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election date
Under the 2004 constitution, elections should have been held no later than 60 days before the end of President Karzai's term in July 2009. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) originally recommended that the poll be held at the same time as the 2010 parliamentary balloting to save costs. However, politicians in the country were unable to agree to the details. Concerns about accessibility to mountainous areas in spring 2009 and the ability of getting adequate people and materials in place by then led the IEC to announce the elections would be delayed to August 2009.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election date
The opposition accused Karzai of attempting to extend his power past his term. In February 2009, President Hamid Karzai called on the Independent Election Committee to hold the election according to the country's constitution, thereby forcing the IEC to reiterate the August date, and silencing critics, who feared a leadership vacuum between May and August. Some potential Afghan opponents complained Karzai's move was an attempt to clear the field of challengers, most of whom would not be ready to campaign for the 2009 election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election date
After the IEC and the international community rejected Karzai's decree, Karzai accepted the date of August 20, 2009. The Supreme Court of Afghanistan announced in March 2009 that Karzai's term would be extended until a new leader had been elected. His opponents called the decision unconstitutional and unacceptable, pointing out that it put Karzai in a position to exploit the office to secure his electoral victory.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election date
The election date of August 20, 2009 was one day after the Afghan anniversary of the formal end of Britain's third attempt to conquer Afghanistan ninety years ago in 1919.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
Forty-four candidates had registered for the presidential election when the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC) announced its official preliminary list of registered candidates on May 17, 2009. Three candidates withdrew from the race before the election took place, having thrown their support behind one of the top two contenders. Each presidential candidate ran with two vice-presidential candidates.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
Karzai filed his candidacy on May 4, 2009; he retained incumbent second Vice President Karim Khalili, who is from the Hazara ethnic group but exchanged the first Vice President Ahmad Zia Massood for Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a Tajik former warlord blamed by human rights groups for mass civilian deaths during the Afghan Civil War.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
The United National Front announced on April 16, 2009, that they would nominate former foreign minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah as their presidential candidate. Abdullah was foreign minister of the Northern Alliance from 1998 onwards, and was a dominant figure in the Alliance. He was appointed foreign minister in the interim government that was installed after the U.S. invasion.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
The first person to have declared his intention to run, Dr. Ramazan Bashardost formally registered for the presidential election on May 7, 2009, with vice-presidential candidates Mr. Mohammad Mosa Barekzai, a professor at the Kabul Agricultural Institute and Ms. Afifa Maroof, a member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and with a dove, a symbol of peace and liberty, as their campaign symbol. Bashardost openly criticized the government and accused ministers of corruption. While serving as the planning minister, he was critical of foreign organizations in Afghanistan eating up aid money meant for the Afghan people and later resigned under government and foreign pressure.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
Dr. Ashraf Ghani, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., and former finance minister, UN special advisor, and World Bank analyst, registered as a presidential candidate on May 7, 2009. At a time when many Afghans would have preferred to lessen the appearance of ties to the U.S. government, he had the distinction of hiring Clinton-campaign chief strategist James Carville as his campaign advisor. His close ties to Washington placed him among those that Afghans considered to be "Zana-e-Bush", literally "Bush's wives". Ashraf Ghani was also reported as the candidate most favoured by the U.S. for appointment to a "chief executive officer" position that the U.S. intended to insert regardless of the winner of the election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
Mirwais Yasini, the First Deputy Speaker of the Afghan House of the People joined the race in March 2009. He was previously a member of the Emergency Loya Jirga convened in 2002, served as deputy of the Loya Jirga, and director of counter narcotics and deputy minister of counter narcotics.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
Shahla Atta, a liberal female MP and war widow also stood, pledging to revive the modernizing policies of 1973–1978 president Mohammad Daoud Khan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
Other presidential contenders included the leader of the Justice and Development Party of Afghanistan Zabihullah Ghazi Nuristani; former attorney general Abdul Jabbar Sabit; former defence minister Shah Nawaz Tanai; Uzbek leader Akbar Bai; economy expert and current senior minister Hedayat Arsala; economist Mohammad Hashem Taufiqui; Sarwar Ahmedzai, a former member of the 2002 Afghan Loya Jirga who authored a 2009 country report for U.S. officials formulating a new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan; and others.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates
Along with the presidential candidates, were 3197 candidates for 420 provincial council positions. A Provincial Council in each of Afghanistan's 34 provinces advises and works with the provincial administration, headed by a Governor that is appointed by the President.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
According to human rights groups, at least 70 candidates with links to "illegal armed groups" were on the ballot list in the election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
While the electoral law disallowed candidates with links to "illegal armed groups", and the Karzai-appointed Independent Election Commission had barred 56 other candidates that it identified as being commanders or members of illegal militias, many of the bigger warlords, including current parliamentarians and provincial council members elected in 2004 and 2005, simply bypassed this by registering their militias as private security companies or by having the right political connections.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
Both of Hamid Karzai's vice-presidential candidates and many of his key allies in the election are alleged to have committed widespread human rights violations and war crimes. Human Rights Watch has called for Vice President Karim Khalili and key ally, former army chief of staff General Abdul Rashid Dostum, to face trial before a special court for alleged war crimes. Khalili is alleged to have been responsible in the killing of thousands of innocent people.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
Karzai's other vice-presidential candidate and former senior security advisor Mohammad Qasim Fahim, along with Karzai backer and former energy minister Ismail Khan, have also been listed by the human rights group as among the "worst perpetrators." Better known as Marshal Fahim, the vice-presidential candidate is accused of having been a former Communist secret police chief, murdering prisoners of war during the 1990s, running private armed militias, and involvement in kidnapping and other crimes after 2001.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
Fahim, a key U.S. ally in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, had also previously served as Karzai's First Vice President and Minister of Defense, having been appointed to those positions in the interim and transitional governments installed after the 2001 invasion. Karzai is also being advised by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, who is said to have first invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan and has lobbied for an amnesty for warlords.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
Most prominently covered was the dramatic return, three days before the election, of General Abdul Rashid Dostum from exile in Turkey as part of a deal to help bring President Karzai to victory. After allegedly kidnapping and beating up a political rival, he was removed as Karzai's army chief of staff in late 2008 and disappeared into exile in Turkey.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
A key U.S. ally during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, General Dostum is arguably the most notorious of Afghanistan's warlords, accused of massive human rights abuses, including the Dasht-i-Leili massacre of up to 2,000 Taliban who were suffocated in cargo containers in late 2001. He is also alleged to have crushed one of his own soldiers to death by tying him to the tracks of a tank.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
Many Afghans hate these powerbrokers in the Afghan government, angered that they evaded accountability for their human rights abuses in the nineties and regained power and land through private militias funded by the millions of dollars they were paid by the CIA in the 2001 U.S. invasion.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
Analysts have suggested that part of Karzai's strategy was to make deals with warlord allies to deliver large blocs of votes in return for key positions and influence in his new government or other significant promises.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Prominent involvement of warlords
In the immediate aftermath of the election, analysts and diplomats suggested that Karzai's alliances with strongmen like General Dostum had paid off, delivering him large numbers of votes in the north. Fahim delivered Tajik votes for Karzai, Khalili brought Hazara support, and Dostum delivered Uzbek votes.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Involvement of drug traffickers
Karzai's vice-presidential candidate, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, is also alleged to have long ties to drug trafficking, according to CIA reports from as early as 2002.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Involvement of drug traffickers
A crucial U.S. ally as the military commander of the Northern Alliance, he worked closely with the CIA in the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and was rewarded with millions of dollars in cash. He was then appointed First Vice President and Minister of Defense in the interim and transitional governments installed after the invasion, handling more millions of dollars sent by the U.S. in military aid to raise and arm a new Afghan army. CIA intelligence reports in 2002 showed that Fahim had a history of narcotics trafficking before the U.S. invasion, and that he was still actively involved after being installed as defense minister, trafficking heroin via cargo plane flights north through Russia, with aides in the Afghan Defense Ministry also involved.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Involvement of drug traffickers
Hamid Karzai's election campaign manager for the south, and half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai – himself a candidate for re-election as the head of the Kandahar provincial council – has also long been alleged to have prominent drug trafficking ties, and was thought to control a significant proportion of Afghan heroin production. Numerous reports link him to the Afghan drug trade, according to officials from the White House, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Involvement of drug traffickers
Officials at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have alleged that the White House favored a hands-off approach with Ahmed Wali Karzai because of his political position. Only a week before the election he denied a report from German news magazine Stern that said that British special forces had found several tons of opium on his land. He claimed that this was being done just before the election to hurt Hamid Karzai's chance of re-election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Candidates, Involvement of drug traffickers
According to current and former U.S. officials, Ahmed Wali Karzai was also being paid by CIA, and had been for the past eight years. The New York Times  on October 27, 2009, stating: "The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade." Also alleged to have orchestrated much of the fraud in favour of his brother in the presidential election, Ahmed Wali Karzai was himself re-elected to the Kandahar provincial council in the August 20 vote.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said insecurity had "severely limited freedom of movement and constrained freedom of expression for candidates". Security concerns prevented presidential candidates from campaigning in most of the provinces, and candidates running for provincial councils were under constant threat wherever they went. Widespread cultural opposition to women in public life, further compounded by the lack of security, made campaigning by women candidates very difficult or impossible in many parts of the country, according to EU observers.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign
A UN election monitoring report said in early August that there was mounting evidence that the government was using state resources to favour Karzai. An election commission report in July noted that state-run Radio Television Afghanistan had dedicated 71% of prime-time news coverage to the president.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign
Issues at the forefront in the election campaign were the insurgency and lack of security, the conduct of foreign troops in Afghanistan and civilian casualties, corruption, and poverty. Topics concerning women's rights were virtually never featured in news coverage of the electoral campaign, and women received almost no coverage in news reporting during the election, according to a European Union observation mission report.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign
Mr. Karzai announced that he would invite the Taliban to a Loya Jirga (a grand tribal council) to try to restart stalled peace talks. A May pre-election poll reported that over two-thirds, 68%, of Afghans thought their government should hold talks and reconcile with the Taliban, and 18% did not know or refused to answer. Only 14% did not support government talks and reconciliation with the Taliban. Karzai also said the country was growing in stature and would be able to prevent "foreigners" from jailing Afghans, referring to the foreign military forces operating in their country.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign
According to Ramazan Bashardost, the insurgency was motivated by the presence of foreign military forces in their country, by the presence of warlords and human rights abusers in the Western-backed regime, by the corruption in that government, and by poverty. Bashardost vowed that he would not allow foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan if elected.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign
Abdul Salam Rocketi, a former Mujahideen "freedom fighter" – whose name came from using rocket-propelled grenades to shoot down Soviet helicopters – and former Taliban commander, said he would announce an amnesty for all the insurgents if he won the election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign
The Election Commission accredited 160,000 observers for the election. The Afghan Free and Fair Elections Foundation, the largest local monitoring group, said that it would have observers at 70 per cent of polling stations but couldn't observe the remainder because of security concerns.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign, Debates
Two candidate debates took place before the August 20 election. The first debate was held on July 23 and was broadcast on Tolo TV. It was supposed to feature Karzai, Abdullah, and Ghani, though Karzai later declined to take part, with his campaign blaming Tolo TV for being biased against him. A second debate took place on August 16 on RTA TV (the state broadcaster) and Radio Free Afghanistan involving Karzai, Ghani, and Bashardost, with Abdullah not participating.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign, Pre-election polls
The pre-election polls, funded by the U.S. government and conducted by Washington D.C.-based organizations, found Hamid Karzai leading his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, by a wide margin, but suggested that he would not have the 50% support required to win the August 20 election outright, raising the prospect of a run off election in October.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign, Pre-election polls
Opinions on the following people (International Republican Institute, May 3–16, 2009)


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign, Pre-election polls
†(Note: May figures were from responses to an open-ended question before the list of presidential candidates was known)


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign, Pre-election polls
††(The International Republican Institute survey did not ask respondents about a Karzai – Barshardost second round scenario)


2009 Afghan presidential election, Campaign, Pre-election polls
The administering of public opinion polls for the 2009 presidential election was beset by numerous difficulties because of the lack of security, harsh geography, and lack of accurate demographic data, but analysts hoped that with improved sampling techniques the pre-election polls would be more predictive of the outcome than they were in 2004.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security
Despite the surge of 30 thousand additional foreign military troops into Afghanistan in the three to four months leading up to the elections, and major military operations in the weeks and days ahead of the election, 12 out of Afghanistan's 34 provinces remained classified as "high risk" by the Afghan Ministry of Interior – meaning limited or no government presence – casting into doubt the ability of over one-third of the country to participate in the elections.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security
A week and a half before the election, the Afghan government announced that it had hired 10,000 tribesmen to provide additional security for the election in almost two-thirds of Afghanistan's provinces. The men were being paid $160 a month, would be non-uniformed, and would use their own guns to secure polling stations in 21 out of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security
ISAF officials stated two days before the election that the 60,000-troop ISAF military force in Afghanistan would halt all offensive operations on polling day in order to help Afghan forces maintain security for the presidential election. The order to halt operations and divert forces to help security followed a similar order issued to Afghan forces by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security
Because of the lack of security, the full list of polling centers was only announced on the actual polling day.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security
A day before the election, hundreds of polling stations were ordered closed in parts of the country where military and police forces fear to go and would not be able to provide protection for election monitors. It had previously been estimated that as many as 700 out of 7,000 polling stations across the country would not open because of the widespread insecurity. On election day, the Afghan election commission reported that only 6,200 polling stations had operated.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security
In Kandahar province, the mayor of Kandahar city, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, said that he would not go vote. "For the last three years the security is getting worse, day by day," Hamidi stated. "Even a child understands that the election day is not safe." His daughter, Rangina Hamidi, a prominent women's advocate, said that it was not worth the risk and that she would not vote either:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security
"My message to the women of Kandahar is this: don't go vote and put yourselves at risk for nothing."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Attacks ahead of the vote
Already in the month preceding the election day, there was a rise in violent incidents, all over Afghanistan, including a suicide bomber attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7. An ISAF spokesperson stated two days before the election that insurgent attacks had averaged 32 per day in the last 10 days, but had spiked up to 48 attacks per day within the last four days. Among the major attacks reported:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Media blackout imposed
In decrees issued two days before the presidential election, the Afghan government imposed censorship for election day, barring news organizations from reporting any information about violence between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. out of concern that reports of violence could reduce voter turnout and damage chances of staging a successful election. Low turnout could undermine the credibility of the election – and could also hurt Karzai's results in the election if not enough ethnic Pashtun people, who form his base of support, turned out for the vote in the insurgent-dominated south of Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Media blackout imposed
On the eve of the election, police at the Kabul bank beat journalists and bystanders with rifle butts to keep them away from the scene where the bloody siege had taken place.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Media blackout imposed
The head of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association (AIJA) said that the government censorship decrees would not stop Afghan and foreign journalists from providing information to the public during the critical election period: "It shows the weakness of the government and we condemn such moves to deprive people from accessing news."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Media blackout imposed
Human Rights Watch also criticized the news censorship, stating: "An attempt to censor the reporting of violence is an unreasonable violation of press freedoms."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Media blackout imposed
The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan called the Afghan government's limitation of media freedom on election day "a violation of democratic principles".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
"This was one of the most violent days witnessed in Afghanistan in the last eight years."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
Afghan government officials reported that 73 incidents of violence had taken place in 15 provinces throughout the country during voting. That number of attacks represented a 50% spike over NATO figures for the violence in the days leading up to the poll.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
The Afghan government also reported that at least 26 people were killed in the election day violence, including eight Afghan soldiers, nine police officers and nine civilians.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
The government figures were impossible to verify, however, because of the government-imposed ban against reporting any information on violence. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the number of election day attacks could actually be much higher than the government reports.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
Another report since has placed the number of attacks on election day in Afghanistan at more than 130. - Broken link in citation.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
ISAF has since reported that more than 400 militant attacks occurred on election day – making it one of the most violent days in Afghanistan since 2001. By comparison, ISAF had stated two days before the election that insurgent attacks had averaged 32 per day in the previous 10 days.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
In one of the worst reported attacks, militants stormed the town of Baghlan in northern Afghanistan, forcing all polling stations there to be closed down, with fighting lasting for most of the day. The district police chief was among those killed.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
Rocket attacks, gun battles, and bomb blasts occurred across much of the country, closing scores of polling stations. The province of Kandahar alone was hit by 122 insurgent rockets. Rockets and mortars were launched into Kandahar, the second largest city in the country, Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, Tirin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan, as well as other cities.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
In an unconfirmed report, militants hanged two people in Kandahar because their index fingers were marked with indelible ink, showing that they had participated in the election that militants consider a tool of foreign occupation. Before the elections militants had threatened to hack off the fingers seen stained by this ink, used to identify voters and prevent fraud. Nader Nadery, of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) said two voters had each lost their finger in southern Kandahar province.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
In the capital city Kabul, militants took over a building before being killed after a two-hour shootout. The capital was also reported to have been hit by at least five bomb blasts.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
Two British soldiers and one U.S. soldier were also killed in separate roadside bomb blasts in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan on election day.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence
Ichal Supriadi, an election observation supervisor with the Asian Network for Free Elections, reported that security fears had grounded many international observers, and that their election observation center had received many reports from their ground observers of people being discouraged from going out to vote.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence, The worst violence in 15 years
"Polling day recorded the highest number of attacks and other forms of intimidation for some 15 years. Regrettably, 31 civilians were killed, including 11 IEC officials as well as 18 Afghan National Police (ANP) and eight Afghan National Army (ANA) personnel."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Election day violence, The worst violence in 15 years
In a report dated October 21, 2009, issued after the release of the final certified election results for the August 20 vote, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) stated that on election day Afghanistan had suffered the highest number of attacks and intimidation the country had seen in some 15 years. The timeframe of 15 years, going back to around August 1994, coincides with Ahmed Rashid's description from  of when "Afghanistan was in state of virtual disintegration just before the Taliban emerged at the end of 1994. The country was divided into warlord fiefdoms and all the warlords had fought, switched sides and fought again in a bewildering array of alliances, betrayals and bloodshed."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Violence in the aftermath of the vote
"The highest level of civilian casualties since the fall of the Taleban in 2002 has been registered in Afghanistan in the period around the elections."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Violence in the aftermath of the vote
On August 25, 2009, a few hours after the first preliminary results were released, a cluster of vehicle bombs detonated together in a massive explosion that killed at least 43 people and wounded at least 65 in Kandahar city, in the bloodiest attack since July 2008. The force of the giant blast, at the center of the city in a district that includes U.N. facilities and an Afghan intelligence office, caused houses and buildings around to collapse, shattering windows around the city, and sending flames shooting into the sky. People miles outside of town felt the rumble. The main target appeared to be a Japanese company that had recently taken over a contract to build a road that insurgents had stalled for several months. A Taliban spokesman denied responsibility, saying the group condemned the attack.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Violence in the aftermath of the vote
On the same day, another bomb blast in southern Afghanistan killed four U.S. soldiers, bringing the total number of foreign troop deaths in Afghanistan this year to 295, making the 2009 death toll for foreign forces in Afghanistan the highest in the eight-year war since the 2001 U.S. invasion.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Violence in the aftermath of the vote
On August 26, 2009, the justice ministry director of Kunduz province, Sayed Jahangir, was killed by a bomb planted in his car in northern Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Violence in the aftermath of the vote
On August 27, 2009, Amnesty International issued a statement saying: "As uncertainty surrounds the outcome of presidential elections in Afghanistan, civilians are at greater danger than at any time since the fall of the Taleban."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Violence in the aftermath of the vote
August 2009 ended as the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion in 2001. At least 51 American soldiers were killed in the month of the election, the highest monthly toll for the U.S. in the nearly eight-year-long war, surpassing the previous high of 45 in July. The month was also the worst in the war in terms of the overall death toll for all foreign military troops, with 77 deaths. Along with 76 deaths in July, the two months were by far the deadliest for the foreign military troops in Afghanistan, according to figures from icasualties.org.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Violence in the aftermath of the vote
On September 12, 2009, a day on which the IEC was to have announced the first full preliminary results, waves of attacks engulfed Afghanistan. At least 66 people – including 24 civilians, 5 U.S. soldiers, and 26 Afghan policemen, soldiers, and guards – were killed in violence that swept across the country. The bloodshed seemed to demonstrate the ability of insurgents, including the Taliban, to carry out attacks in most parts of the country despite the surge to a record number of foreign military troops in the eight-year war.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
The lack of security and its effects on voter registration, polling station accessibility, and voter turnout – mainly in regions populated by Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes, which make up 32-37% of the country's population – have raised serious concerns about an ethnic imbalance in the Afghan election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
"There are districts that I am 100 percent sure no government worker can go to - But you are telling me that still so many people registered? I don't believe it."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
According to leaders and residents of Pashtun districts, many voter registration centers in their districts never opened during the registration period and few people even left their homes, let alone registered. Provincial officials have also said that election registration teams rarely, if ever, dared to venture outside of the district capitals.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
In the province of Wardak, with six of the province's eight districts controlled by insurgents, this resulted in the two Hazara-dominated districts of the province forming the bulk of the new voters registered. Independent Election Commission (IEC) Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Zekra Barakzai stated that "the registration numbers in Pashtun districts are very low."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
According to Habibullah Rafeh, a policy analyst with the Afghan Academy of Sciences, there could be an ethnic imbalance if the same problem was reproduced in other Pashtun regions of Afghanistan.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
In Helmand province, where 62% of the population is Pashtun and where U.S. Marines conducted major offensives, only 75 people were found to have been registered in one town of 2,000 residents.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
For those that did register to vote, the absence of polling stations because of lack of security may have been the next obstacle. In Helmand province, Haji Mohammad, from Marja district, said that he sold all his family's voting cards because there were no polling stations in their area.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
On the day before the election, Afghan election officials ordered 443 polling stations within insurgent territory in the Pashtun-dominated provinces of Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Zabul, Helmand and Kandahar to stay closed because of the lack of security. While the Afghan election commission had until recently presented a figure of 7,000 polling stations, on election day it reported that only 6,200 polling stations had actually operated.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
Compounded with its effects on voter registration and polling station accessibility, the lack of security also seems to have been a major factor in the much lower voter turnout in the Pashtun-dominated south of the country, where turnout was as low as 5–10%, effectively disenfranchising the region.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Lack of security, Possible ethnic imbalance
On election day, Abdul Hamid, a tribal elder from Paghman District – a mostly Pashtun district bordering Wardak province – was reported as insisting that 40 to 50% of eligible Paghman voters had not received voting cards, and therefore could not cast a ballot.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud
Starting in December 2008, journalist Anand Gopal and others have reported extensively on the widespread instances of fraud in the voter registration process, with the registration rolls including "phantom voters" and multiple registration cards issued to a single registrant, amongst numerous other problems.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud
Two days before the election, an investigation by the BBC also found and reported evidence of widespread electoral fraud and corruption in the Afghan presidential election.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting cards being sold
After being informed that voting cards were being sold in the capital, Kabul, an Afghan working for the BBC posed as a potential buyer and was offered one thousand voting cards on the spot, for $10 (£6) per card. Samples provided were all authentic with the name, photo and home details of the voter on them. Other parties also offered to sell the BBC investigators thousands of votes, and some sellers have even been arrested by the authorities.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting cards being sold
A flourishing black market in voter registration cards has also sprung up across the south of Afghanistan where they were being sold for £6 to £18 each. The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), an independent election monitoring organisation, had also collected evidence of election fraud, particularly in the voter registration process. The monitoring group found that in many places people were being issued multiple voting cards, that voting cards were often issued for children, and that stacks of voting cards were given to men who falsely claimed that they were for women in their households.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting cards being sold
Long lists of imaginary female relatives were found to have been concocted during an attempt to update the electoral roll. In Kandahar, "Britney Jamilia Spears" appeared among the names registered. FEFA found that multiple registrations of a single person were taking place in at least 40% of all centers in one phase of the registration drive, and in one case, investigators found that about 500 voting registration cards were given to just one individual in Badghis province.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting cards being sold
The independent election observers also reported that as many as one in five registrations were for people under the voting age – in many cases as young as 12 years old. According to a pre-election report by the Afghanistan Analyst Network, a Kabul-based group of foreign experts, as many as three million voters on the register were feared to not exist. The huge numbers of vote cards issued for phantom voters have raised concerns about massive electoral fraud. Shahrzad Akbar, a senior analyst with FEFA, stated that because the monitoring body was only able to investigate a few parts of the country, the election irregularities and abuses could be even more widespread:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting cards being sold
"We couldn't observe how it went in every single district or village. I am sure that there are cases of multiple card distribution that we don't know about. But those incidents that we do know about caused us enough concern to contact the Independent Election Commission and say, 'please prevent this!'"


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Bribes being offered
There has also been evidence that people working for candidates have deliberately tried to influence the outcome of the election by offering bribes to buy large numbers of votes.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Bribes being offered
In Baghlan province, a tribal elder and former military commander described how the voter fraud scheme worked. Within the hierarchical structure of Afghanistan, key local leaders like him have the ability to persuade large numbers of people to vote for one candidate or another. He reported that he and other local leaders had been approached by teams from the two leading contenders of the presidential election with monetary bribes:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Bribes being offered
"If one candidate gives $10,000, then the other gives $20,000 and a third one offers even more. It has become such a lucrative and competitive business. I don't know where they get their money from."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Bribes being offered
According to a U.S. government-funded poll released the week before the poll, the two leading contenders in the election were Hamid Karzai, the Pashtun incumbent, and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister with strong ties to the former Northern Alliance.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Bribes being offered
In Helmand province, tribal leaders and local people also described a systematic attempt by Karzai supporters to collect or buy voter registration cards from people in an electoral fraud scheme allegedly orchestrated by Karzai's half-brother and campaign manager for the south, Ahmed Wali Karzai.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Armed coercion
Along with bribes, cases of threats by warlords have also been reported. In Herat province, a village elder said he had been threatened with "very unpleasant consequences" by a local commander if the residents of his village failed to vote for Karzai.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Armed coercion
Other instances of coercion in the electoral process – ranging from threatening phone calls to beatings and killings – by government agents (particularly security forces and armed factions aligned with certain candidates) have been extensively documented.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Armed coercion
The hiring of 10,000 tribesmen by the Karzai government to secure polling stations in 21 out of 34 provinces, without uniforms and using their own guns, also raised questions of voter intimidation.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Armed coercion
During the voting, intimidation of voters by some powerful candidates, in particular local candidates running for provincial council seats, was reported by observers.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Armed coercion
In the northern province of Balkh, people were forced at gunpoint to vote for former foreign minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, according to complaints lodged with the election commission by former finance minister Dr. Ashraf Ghani in the days after the vote.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Armed coercion
Meanwhile, both the Karzai and Abdullah camps have accused each other's side of having engaged in intimidation of voters, including allegations from Abdullah of intimidation and other interference by the head of the border police in Kandahar province, General Abdul Raziq, and his forces on behalf of Karzai.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Hundreds of polling stations shut down
The day before the election, Afghan election officials ordered more than 440 polling stations to stay closed during the vote out of fears of election fraud. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said Hamid Karzai's supporters were trying to keep open polling stations deep within insurgent-held regions where the army and police fear going and where voting could not be properly monitored by observers.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Hundreds of polling stations shut down
An international observer monitoring the election proceedings said that the IEC had come under "a lot of pressure" from the Karzai administration to open more polling stations in the provinces of Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Zabul, Helmand and Kandahar where the government has little control beyond major urban centers.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Hundreds of polling stations shut down
Registration figures suggested that concerted preparations for vote-rigging had taken place in Khost and Paktia. Records suspiciously showed that twice as many women as men had registered to vote, while a thriving black market in voting cards has appeared with cards being bought and sold by the thousands for £6 to £18 each.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Systemic conflicts of interest
Government workers, required to be impartial in the election, were found by election observers to have actively and illegally campaigned for candidates. Investigators have also found members of political parties occupying positions as election officials.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Systemic conflicts of interest
The most problematic conflict of interest may be the fact that the country's Independent Elections Commission (IEC) that oversees the whole election is not "independent" of the Karzai administration at all. All seven of its members were appointed to the commission by Hamid Karzai, and its chairman, a former Karzai advisor in Herat province, has reportedly made no secret of his partisan support for the incumbent president.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Systemic conflicts of interest
In the days following the election, Karzai's main challenger, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, denounced the chairman of the IEC as working for Mr. Karzai. Foreign election observers have also criticized the Independent Election Commission as being full of Karzai appointees.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Systemic conflicts of interest
The BBC has reported that the Independent Election Commission has been accused of not doing enough to prevent abuses that have been brought to its attention.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Systemic conflicts of interest
FEFA, the country's largest independent election monitoring organization, has also raised questions about the impartiality of Independent Election Commission (IEC) local officials, and noted that questions about IEC impartiality constituted "a trend that has persisted throughout the electoral process". Throughout election day, numerous reports were received of local IEC officials improperly interfering in the voting process.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Systemic conflicts of interest
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said the independence of the Independent Election Commission was compromised by Karzai's appointment of the IEC chairman without parliamentary oversight and accused the IEC chairman of displaying "clear bias".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Election day news included reports of widespread electoral fraud throughout the day. At one polling station in Nad-e-Ali, in the Helmand province, just over 400 people had voted by 1 p.m., but three hours later, the figure had apparently rose to some 1,200, despite that guards had hardly seen any voters. Election officials were later seen counting piles of ballot papers, without checking simply declaring the votes had been cast for Karzai.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
As early as 8 a.m., only one hour after the polls had opened, officials at the U.S. embassy in Kabul were receiving complaints of fraud.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Ashraf Ghani, one of the presidential candidates and also reported as favoured by the U.S. for a "chief executive" position to run the country regardless of the election outcome, e-mailed U.S. officials with reports of his opponents stuffing election ballot boxes. Other candidates also lodged similar complaints with U.S. officials – who referred them instead to the national election body.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Abdullah, the main opponent to Hamid Karzai in the presidential election, said that his supporters were lodging complaints of election fraud, in particular from Kandahar province. Hours after the polls closed, his deputy campaign manager, Saleh Mohammad Registani, alleged that "very large scale" fraud had taken place in at least three of the country's 34 provinces, including ballot box stuffing.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Presidential candidate Mirwais Yasini, the deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament, lodged 31 complaints with Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC), telling the BBC that both main camps had engaged in widespread electoral fraud.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Election monitor group FEFA reported receiving cases throughout the voting day of "improper interference" by local Independent Election Commission (IEC) staff in the voting process, raising continued concerns about the impartiality of IEC election officials. Their post-election provisional report also detailed cases of election officials being ejected from polling stations by representatives of candidates.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Photojournalist Peter Nicholls of The Times photographically  an apparent case of ballot box stuffing amid low voter turnout in Pul-e-Charkhi, in Kabul province.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
In a further irregularity, the supposedly indelible ink used to mark the index finger of voters to prevent voting more than once was found to be easily removable in many instances – a repeat of a problem that had also occurred in the 2004 and 2005 elections. According to Havana Marking, director of a documentary on the elections, by 9 a.m. people were bleaching their fingers and casting ballots twice. The documentary makers filmed "a cafe full of young men laughing and deciding who to vote for the second time".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Complaints about the ink were made by the camps of all three of the main challengers in the presidential race. Aides to Dr. Abdullah reported that at the polling station where he had cast his ballot, voters had been able to clean the ink from their fingertips within minutes. Ashraf Ghani's team had reports of inferior ink that was easily removed being used in the western city of Herat.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Election fraud, Voting irregularities
Presidential candidate and former planning minister Dr. Ramazan Bashardost charged that the indelible ink could be washed off easily, and lodged an official complaint endorsed by a member of the Election Complaints Commission. The former minister, who had been running third in the pre-election polls, said: "This is not an election. This is a comedy."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Flawed election
Western officials conceded the election would be flawed, admitting that there had been election corruption, that there was apathy, that the lack of security would stop some from voting, and that precautions designed to prevent fraud would be ineffective in many parts of the country where election monitors cannot go.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Flawed election
The international community accepted that fraud would be inevitable in the presidential election, but hoped that it could be minimised to an "acceptable level where it will not alter the final result".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Flawed election
Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann put the odds of an election that would appear "good enough" at "50-50".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Flawed election
Additionally, 7 million fewer Afghans were even allowed to vote than in the last election. Thousands of complaints were filed, and there was blatant evidence of corruption.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
NATO officials announced in March 2009 that 15.6 million voters had registered to vote, roughly half of the country's population, and that 35 to 38 percent of registered voters were women. Those registration numbers were disputed, however, by the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan and media reports, which suggested widespread fraudulent activity in the election process.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
While UN, American and Afghan officials quickly hailed the election as a success, evidence from observers on the ground and from journalists suggested that the Taliban had succeeded in deterring many Afghans from voting.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
At the end of the voting day, top election official Zekria Barakzai estimated the voter turnout across the country at around 40–50%. One Western diplomat slapped aside 50 percent as a "joke". On August 21, The New York Times  reported that overall turnout was expected to be about 40%. On August 26, The Daily Telegraph reported that turnout may have been little more than 35% nationwide and was less than 10% in some districts of Helmand and Kandahar.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
Figures released by the IEC on August 31, when the ballots from almost half of the country's polling stations had been counted, pointed to a turnout of only 30% to 35%. Most of the ballots counted to that point were from the north of the country.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
Independent election observers in the country almost all agreed that voter turnout was far lower than in the previous presidential election in 2004.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
The turnout was uneven across the country with low turnout in the south and east of Afghanistan, suppressed by lack of security and disenchantment, while vote participation was somewhat higher in the more stable north and west of the country, including some reports of long lines of voters seen outside polling stations.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
Voter turnout in the eastern city of Jalalabad was low at no more than 20–30%, according to election observer Tim Fairbank: "A lot of people have told us they were afraid to vote, and afraid to have their fingers dipped in ink because of the Taliban's threats." The government, on the other hand, was expected to claim that it was more like 60% in the area.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
In the Pashtun-dominated southern provinces, turnout was as low as 5–10%, according to one Western official. In some parts of the country almost no women voted.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
In Khan Neshin, Helmand province, in the south of Afghanistan, election officials estimated that only 250 to 300 people – out of an estimated population of 35,000 to 50,000 in a region larger than Connecticut – showed up to vote at the single polling station available for the area. Not a single woman voted, according to the district governor, Massoud Ahmad Rassouli Balouch.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
In Babaji district of Helmand province, where 10 British soldiers were killed in Operation Panther's Claw, a British offensive launched against insurgents a few weeks ahead of the elections, reports indicated that only about 150 people voted out of a population of 55,000. One election observer said no more than 15 people voted at the polling centre where he was based.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
In another Helmand province district of 70,000 people, barely 500 people voted, while in one town of 2,000 residents, only 50 people voted.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
Voter turnout in Kandahar city, Afghanistan's second largest city, was estimated to be down 40% from the previous election in 2004. Noor Ahmad, a resident of Zerai District, said: "The turnout is very low, perhaps less than 5 percent."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
In the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent in Kandahar, Dawa Khan Meenapal, said that people voted heavily but overall turnout was lower than in past elections, and that participation by women was very low.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
In Lashkargah, the provincial capital of Helmand, Mohammad Aliyas Daee, a Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent in Helmand, similarly reported that "the overall participation of women was negligible." Voter turnout, by one estimate, was at below 20% in the city, considered to be more secure than the rest of the province.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
In the southeastern Uruzgan province, the deputy police chief, Mohammad Nabi, estimated the province-wide turnout to be less than 40%, saying that "people had no interest".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
Voting in the capital city Kabul also appeared to have been depressed, with one estimate placing turnout at only 30%. Officials, witnesses, and journalists at several polling stations reported low participation numbers. Afghan journalist and research analyst, Abdulhadi Hairan, observed that the low voter turnout in Kabul resulted in reporters and cameramen having to wait nearly to midday before having enough voter interviews to send back to their news organizations. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's main opponent in the presidential election, called the low voter turnout in Kabul "unsatisfactory."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
"The early information is that the turnout was very low in some provinces and at best was fair in others."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout
The polls in Afghanistan, originally scheduled to close at 4 p.m. after nine hours of voting, had been held open an hour longer in a last-minute decision by the Independent Election Commission.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
Official election monitors and the UN placed voter turnout in the election at only around 30–33%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
In a joint report with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, issued October 21, 2009, after the release of the final certified election results for the August 20 vote, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan stated:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
The approximate quantity and guarded wording of the UN statement indicated a voter turnout of no higher than 33%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
The figures of the Independent Election Commission, adjusted for 1,065,031 votes discarded as fraudulent, indicate a voter turnout of 31.4%:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
When the IEC released its September 16 uncertified final results with a total of 5,662,758 "valid votes", the IEC claimed a voter turnout of 38.7%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
Following the ECC's official audit findings, the IEC's October 21 final certified results for the August 20 election presented a total of 4,597,727 "valid votes". 1,065,031 votes or 18.8% of the votes had been invalidated between the IEC's September 16 results and its final certified results.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
A proportional 18.8% reduction of the IEC's September 16 voter turnout figure of 38.7% gives a voter turnout figure of 31.4%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Low voter turnout, Post-audit voter turnout figures
In an article published October 21, 2009, in Foreign Policy magazine, J. Scott Carpenter, an official election observer for the August 20 vote, placed the voter turnout at 30%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
Ballot counting began immediately after the polls closed on August 20, with official preliminary results to be declared two weeks later on September 3, official final results to be declared two weeks after that on September 17, and a run-off, if required, to be held within two weeks after that.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
Within a day into the vote counting, however, both the Karzai and Abdullah camps were making claims of leading far enough in the count to obtain a majority of over 50%, and that a run-off vote would not be needed.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
Three days into the vote counting, reports suggested that Hamid Karzai had been re-elected by a landslide, with early figures giving Karzai 72% of the vote and his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, at 23%.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
If confirmed, the scale of the win is expected to provoke accusations of vote-rigging, with the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) having already received 225 complaints within three days – some containing multiple allegations – and reports still arriving from remote areas.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
Thirty-five of the complaints received so far were deemed by the ECC to have been on a scale large enough to have altered the outcome of the poll, with the most common complaint among them being ballot box tampering. Other charges included intimidation of voters, failures of the "indelible ink", and interference in polling.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
Abdullah Abdullah accused Hamid Karzai of "stealing" the election and alleged that widespread electoral fraud had been committed. He told The Guardian: "It was led by Mr Karzai. He knew. He knew that without this he cannot win, about that I have no doubt in my mind."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
A senior UN official said that there would be no legitimacy if Karzai was proclaimed the outright winner in the election that Afghanistan's international backers are desperate should be seen as legitimate: "If the international community say it is all wonderful, they lose further credibility and are associated with an illegitimate government."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
By August 25, the ECC said it had received 1,157 complaints, with 54 categorized as "high priority" and material to the outcome, and many more still expected. Some of the worst fraud may have occurred in Helmand province, according to allegations from at least two presidential candidates. A spokesman for Ashraf Ghani alleged large-scale ballot box stuffing in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the province.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
An aide to Dr. Abdullah accused election officials in Helmand of having doubled the real turnout figure – a claim that found some anectdotal support in changing figures given by the top local Independent Election Commission official in Helmand, who told The Times on the day of the election that fewer than 50,000 people had voted in the province, then changed the number to 110,000, and then to 150,000 in subsequent days.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
A UN official predicted that anywhere between 10% and 20%, or as many as one in five, of all the ballots were illegal, and even proposed that negotiations would have to be made to "massage down" Karzai's victory margin.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
The deputy speaker of Afghanistan's lower house of parliament, Mirwais Yasini, claimed that thousands of ballots cast for him had been removed from ballot boxes by his opponents and taken away to be destroyed instead of counted. He displayed bags full of ballots from Kandahar that had been discovered by his supporters. Yasini said the only option available was to "abolish the election".


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
Abdullah Abdullah also brought forth evidence to support his allegations of widespread vote-rigging.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
He showed sealed ballot forms that he similarly claimed were votes for him that were never counted; a vote ledger sheet from a polling station that listed only a few names, yet had a ballot tally on the bottom of 1,600; video showing ballot-stuffing that he said was recorded on August 22 – two days after the polls had closed on August 20 and ballot boxes were supposed to have been sealed; video of an individual directing voters to cast their ballot for Karzai; a photograph allegedly showing Karzai people looking over the shoulders of voters filling their ballot sheets behind the cardboard voting screens; a thick tablet of ballot sheets still affixed to the pad, with every single ballot apparently pre-marked for Karzai with the same pen and by what seemed to be the same hand. Abdullah said the tablet had been turned over to them in southern Afghanistan and was just one of hundreds. He said: "This amount of fraud ... Even I did not anticipate it. I was shocked."


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud
More than 10 boxes of ballots were lost when a U.S. Air Force Chinook helicopter accidentally dropped and lost the ballot boxes collected from a remote village.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 26 partial results
On August 26, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) reported partial results tallied from 10% of the polling stations, and announced that it planned to release partial results each day for the next several days.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 26 partial results
By one account, Hamid Karzai was leading slightly with 41% of the counted votes, while Abdullah Abdullah was at 39%, based on 524,000 valid votes counted after 31,000 – or 5.6% – of the votes were thrown out.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 26 partial results
By another account, covering the same news, IEC Chief Electoral Officer Daoud Ali Najafi announced in a news conference that Karzai was at 38% while Abdullah was at 36%, based on 550,000 votes.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 26 partial results
According to the BBC, the partial results were as follows:


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 26 partial results
Those partial figures of 550,000 votes from 10% of the polling stations, when extrapolated, could suggest a national turnout of 5.5 million, which would be about 30% lower than the turnout figures from the previous presidential election in 2004. The tally was based mainly on returns in the north and other parts of the country – the commission said that less than 2% of the ballots in Kandahar province and none of the ballots from Helmand province had been tallied.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 26 partial results
Reports of the total number of registered voters have varied from 15 million, to 15.6 million, to 17 million, with no verified list of eligible voters to compare against.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 27 partial results
A second release of partial results was made by the election authorities after 17%, or 940,000, of the ballots were counted.


2009 Afghan presidential election, Post-election vote count and investigations, August, rampant allegations of fraud, August 27 partial results
The figures have also been reported as Karzai having 44.8% and Abdullah 35.1% of the ballots based on 17% of the country's polling stations (as opposed to 17% of the ballots).