Word: talibanize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...decorous massage job. With 10% of districts reporting, the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister, were tied, with about 40% each. But few of those votes came from Karzai's Pashtun strongholds in the south, where turnout was light - owing to Taliban threats - but heavily managed. "It's not exactly one man, one vote out in the rural areas," a Western diplomat told me. "The tribal leader gathers everyone together and says, 'We're voting for Candidate X.'" In some cases, apparently, tribal leaders have simply stamped all the ballots themselves; with literacy...
...polling sites nationwide. Moreover, they were drawn from less than half of the country's 34 provinces. As a result, even as some observers posit a Karzai victory, it's still hard to gauge where the candidates actually stand - and the extent of the impact of the Taliban's pre-election campaign of intimidation. (See pictures of election day in Afghanistan...
...have already been lodged with the Electoral Complaints Commission, more than 150 of which involve large numbers of votes and could affect the final outcome. The commission has launched probes that must be completed before final results can be released, a requirement that could take several weeks. In the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province, where some of the worst fraud is said to have taken place, rolling violence means many of the probes are bound to remain unresolved...
...voter turnout in much of the south. In at least two instances, promises to cut off the fingers of those who voted were made good on. The extra time and mounting pressure of a runoff would create a climate that could be readily exploited, according to Mir, by the Taliban or "neighbors who like to meddle in Afghan affairs" - a less-than-subtle reference to Pakistan. "If someone wants to make trouble, it's a good time." (Read about the warlord who is key to Karzai's victory...
...south. "The Pashtun people are the owners of this country, no one else," says Abdul Khan, 63, a tribal elder from Kandahar city. Another local Pashtun man said he would rather vote for a Hindu before Abdullah, a fellow Muslim. A second vote for Karzai would suffice, if the Taliban threats and voting controversy...