Afghan Election Recount Begins Before Final, Preliminary Results Released
阿富汗开始重新统计部分大选选票
Afghan election officials have begun recounting disputed ballots from the August 20 presidential election. The recount amid fraud allegations leaves open the possibility of a second round for the disputed election.
阿富汗选举官员开始对8月20日总统选举的有争议选票进行重新计票。由于那次选举被控存在舞弊现象而进行的重新计票，使得备受争议的选举有可能进入第二轮决选。
The recount, ordered by the Election Complaints Commission, began this week and comes before the full, election results have been announced. The final preliminary numbers have been held up because of what the government-run Independent Election Commission describes as "technical problems" with the official forms for the remaining untabulated two percent of ballot boxes.
由选举投诉委员会下令进行的重新计票于这个星期开始，重新计票在全面选举结果公布前进行。最终的初步选举数字没有被公布，原因是政府运作的独立选举委员会说，用于统计剩下2%选票的官方表格出现了“技术问题”。
Noor Mohammed Noor, an IEC spokesman has told VOA's Afghan Service those forms are being sent back to the provinces for clarification.
独立选举委员会一名发言人对美国之音阿富汗语部表示，这些表格正在被送回各省进行澄清。
The nearly complete results show President Hamid Karzai with a commanding lead over former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. The incumbent is currently above the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff election.
据几近完全的选举结果显示，现任总统卡尔扎伊遥遥领先于他的主要竞选对手、前外交部长阿卜杜拉。卡尔扎伊目前的得票数超过了避免决选所需的50%以上的选票。
But the U.N.-backed Election Complaints Commission is ordering a significant recount of ballots from every province - covering 10 percent of all polling stations.
但是联合国支持的选举投诉委员会下令对每个省份的相当一部分选票进行重新统计。重新统计选票的数量相当于全部投票站选票的10%。
Canadian Grant Kippen is the chairman of the ECC, of which three of the five members are appointed by the U.N. Secretary General.
选举投诉委员会的主席是加拿大人格兰特.基彭，这个委员会五名成员中的三名是联合国秘书长任命的。
"We have received 2,300 complaints of which we have prioritized those complaints and over 700 have been deemed to be what we call a "Priority A' complaint, of high priority," he said. "Those are the complaints that we are actually dealing with at this point in time."
基彭说：“我们接到了2300个投诉。我们对这些投诉按重要程度排列，其中700多个被定为我们所说的“A类优先”投诉，具有高度重要性。这些投诉是我们现在正在处理的。”
VOA News asked Kippen if the on-site investigations of massive ballot box stuffing and other acts of election fraud will take weeks or, as some predict, months to complete.
"I really cannot give you an answer in terms of a definitive date by which we are going to be done," said Kippen. "We are dealing with the complaints received, this order that we issued last week to the Election Commission. There is this audit and recount process. It is difficult to put a timeline to both of these activities at this point."
A runoff would likely have to be delayed until next year if not held very soon to avoid the impending winter, which would not make balloting logistically possible in much of rural Afghanistan.
如果决选不很快进行的话，就很有可能会被推迟到明年，以躲过即将来临的冬季，因为对于阿富汗大部分农村地区来说，冬季几乎无法进行投票。
Presidential candidate Abdullah says if the results are delayed until next year then Afghanistan should have a transitional government put into place.
总统候选人阿卜杜拉说，如果选举结果被推迟到明年，那么阿富汗应该组建一个过渡政府。
"I would be more comfortable with the results coming out before the winter, yes, sooner rather than later," he said. "Should that other scenario, which is not preferable, happen, on that I think a sort of caretaker government has to be put together preferably with not Mr. Karzai at the top."
他说，“我更倾向于选举结果在冬季来临前公布，没错，宜早不宜迟。如果退而求次，要在冬季之后公布，我想应该建立类似看守政府一样的机构，最好不是由卡尔扎伊领导的。”
Abdullah says he should also not be the leader of such a temporary administration.
阿卜杜拉表示，他也不应当担任这个临时政府的领导人。
Abudllah's campaign contends that up to one of every four votes cast in last month's election are under suspicion of being tainted.
阿卜杜拉的竞选阵营提出争议说，在上个月的选举中，有舞弊嫌疑的选票高达四分之一。
The foreign policy chief for the European Union, Javier Solana, has told reporters in Brussels that while he would like to see the process go faster the most important aspect is to have credible results in the end.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir says the fraud allegations cannot be ignored and his European counterparts will insist the complaints be thoroughly scrutinized.
Many Western countries initially hailed the election as a victory for the democratic process. The Taliban, ousted from power by a U.S. invasion in 2001, had vowed to disrupt balloting.
The United States has the largest military force in the country among the 42-nation coalition fighting the eight-year-old war against the insurgents.