Follow BeltwayBlips on Twitter
Blog Reactions
The Monkey Cage: Strategic Voting in NY, NJ, and Afghanistan
Below The Beltway: Afghan Election Cancelled, Karzai Declared Winner
Reactions
 |
Obama Warns Karzai to Focus on Tackling Corruption http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/world/asia/03afghan.html NYTimes.com 18 days ago |
 |
Karzai Gets New Term as Afghan Runoff Is Scrapped http://bit.ly/3ABYdc 19 days ago |
 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials on Monday cancelled Saturday’s run-off presidential vote following the wi.. http://bit.ly/43OVVS 19 days ago |
Strategic Voting in NY, NJ, and Afghanistan
The Monkey Cage —
... round if no one gets a majority in the first round of the election - voters can safely cast their vote for their preferred candidate in the first round knowing that they will still have a chance to cast a ballot between the top two choices in the second round, and therefore not “waste their vote”. According to the logic of strategic voting, we should never see a candidate drop out in the second round of a two-round majoritarian election, which is, of course, exactly what just happened in Afghanistan, joining another distinguished recent election (the ...
Afghan Election Cancelled, Karzai Declared Winner
Below The Beltway —
With no opposition candidate, Hamid Karzai’s path to re-election was pretty easy:
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials on Monday canceled plans for a runoff presidential vote, declaring President Hamid Karzai the winner after the withdrawal on Sunday of his last remaining challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.
The announcement capped a fraught election widely depicted as deeply flawed by corruption and voting irregularities..
Azizullah Ludin, the chairman of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission, said the Constitution did not require a ...
Afghan 'Fiasco'
Opinionator —
Opinionland has had little positive to say about the failed presidential run-off in Afghanistan, which ran off the road over the weekend when candidate Abdullah Abdullah withdrew, leaving the field to President Hamid Karzai, who earlier today was declared the official winner . Among the commentaries posted today I count two “fiascos,” one “failure,” and one “bad, bad, bad.” “ ...
The Note's Must-Reads for Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Note —
... ABC News’ Jim Sciutto and Devin Dwyer: “Karzai Wins Presidency as Afghan Runoff Is Cancelled” LINK
The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov in Kabul and Zahid Hussain in Islamabad: “Afghan Presidential Runoff Is Canceled” LINK
Bloomberg’s Roger Runningen and Nicholas Johnston: “Obama Calls on Karzai to Deliver Results on Graft, Governance” LINK
The New York Times’ Helene Cooper and Jeff Zeleny: “Obama Warns Karzai to Focus on Tackling Corruption” LINK
The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson and Rajiv Chandrasekaran: “Karzai is wild card for U.S. ...
Early Word: (Afghan) Election Aftermath
The Caucus —
With Election Day looming here, President Obama took time on Monday to both congratulate and admonish Afghan President Hamid Karzai, now the official winner of the disputed election there. As The Times’s Helene Cooper and Jeff Zeleny report, the president told Mr. Karzai during a congratulatory call that he must stand up to the corruption and drug trade currently flourishing in Afghanistan, something Mr. Karzai is widely seen to have neglected in his first term. The administration and European officials also would like to see an anti-corruption commission established in ...
Plan B
Mudville Gazette —
... A fine report - but lacking the "inside connections" of the New York Times, al Jazeera was unable to match the big-city paper's dramatic report of one other White House desire - a human sacrifice: ...
Never Trust a Man in a Cape
Hit & Run —
... President Obama expects Afghan President Hamid
Karzai—freshly legitimized by an election featuring fraud so
massive that it led to a runoff from which his only remaining
opponent recently withdrew, fearing more of the same—to crack down
on official corruption. The New York Times reports
that "the administration wants Mr. Karzai and the Afghan
government to put into place an anticorruption commission to
establish strict accountability for government officials at the
national and provincial levels." How strict? Not very: ...
The Missing Link From Killeen to Kabul
Commondreams.org Views —
... he has been weighing so far. The more time he deliberates, the more he is learning that he's on a fool's errand with no exit. After Karzai was spared a runoff last month and declared the winner of the fraud-infested August "election," Obama demanded that he address his government's corruption as a price for American support. Only days later the Afghan president mocked the American president by ...
Corruption in Afghanistan -- By: Brock Dahl
Articles on National Review Online —
... In his congratulatory phone call to Hamid Karzai, President Obama emphasized the importance of fighting corruption and noted that “the proof is not going to be in words; it’s going to be in deeds.” He would do well to heed his own advice. ...
