Afghanistan exposes US double standards
Posted: Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Herald
November 03, 2009

EDITOR – I was shocked and disgusted by the United States of America's double standards and their hypocritical behaviour over the situation in Afghanistan.

When our harmonised elections here failed to produce an outright winner as none of the four presidential; candidates managed to garner the 50 percent plus one vote required under the Constitution which made a run-off inevitable.

In the case of Afghanistan, rampant fraud and rigging were proved making a run-off necessary. In the Afghan case the challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, decided not to participate in the run-off in protest of what he terms "misconduct of the government and the Independent Election Commission".

Commenting on the pullout, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Abdullah's withdrawal from the run-off will not affect the legitimacy of the outcome simply because initially Abdullah accepted to participate in the run-off in the first place.

I do not profess to be a guru in politics, but how does this scenario differ from Zimbabwe's June 27, 2008 run-off where MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced his "withdrawal" five days before the poll with the Anglo-Saxon alliance casting aspersions on the outcome?

If anything, the Afghan situation was worse because the run-off was necessitated by fraud. And in our case, Tsvangirai could not withdraw since the election had already started with postal ballots cast.

Zimbabwe, let's wake up and see things in their correct perspectives, otherwise other nations and interested parties will take advantage of our naivete and greed for greenbacks.

C. Kays.

Harare. 

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