Did Afghan govt use ’smuggled’ voters from Pakistan to rig parliamentary elections?

ISLAMABAD - The Afghan government may have used a significant number of unregistered Afghan voters, mostly refugees from Pakistan, to cast votes in favour of government-backed electoral candidates, suggest reports received from United Nations (UN) Afghanistan.

According to the reports, though the border land routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, particularly Waziristan, Khyber Agency and Chaman, were closed down for three weeks on the pretext of security threats ahead of the Afghan parliamentary elections, covert movement of people was reported across the border during this time period, the Nation reported.

The exact number of ’smuggled’ voters remains unknown, but UN officials claim that thousands of people unlawfully entered Afghanistan during the last few days.

Sources in the UN in Afghanistan revealed that over 40,000 registered Afghan refugees had entered the country since March 21, 2010, under the Tripartite Agreement on Voluntary Repatriation of Afghan Refugees signed by Pakistan, Afghanistan and UN.

But lately, the repatriation of Afghan refugees was temporarily suspended, citing security reasons ahead of Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.

“There is a standard procedure for refugees’ repatriation that requires proper prior documentation and registration, but those people who kept sneaking into the borders were all unlawful entries,” UN officials said, confirming that thousands of unregistered refugees had entered Afghanistan in ‘black’ through the Af-Pak border land routes. (ANI)