KABUL-
The United States has called off the funding for opinion polls ahead of Afghanistan’s presidential election after an initial poll in December prompted charges of US attempting to manipulate the outcome, officials said.
A spokesman for the U.S.-funded group Democracy International said on Thursday that six US organizations had planned to carry out opinion polls as Afghanistan prepares for the April 5 election.
Democracy International program officer Mohammad Atta said the group had planned three rounds of opinion polls. It published its first results in December but its findings provoked a public outcry and accusations of interference.
“There were a few agencies that were responsible for conducting the polls but all of them have been cancelled at the moment,” Atta said.
The U.S. embassy in Kabul later confirmed the funding cut.
“Statements by some electoral authorities and candidates’ camps suggested that there was … a perception that the polling results were somehow biased,” a U.S. embassy spokesman said.
“In order to avoid any perception – however baseless – of U.S. interference, we have decided to forgo additional U.S.-funded polling regarding the upcoming election,” he said.
The cut in funding comes as relations between the United States and Afghanistan have been severely strained over President Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a bilateral security pact that would enable U.S. troops to stay beyond this year.
Karzai has long suspected the United States of having interfered in the last presidential election in 2009 and has warned against further meddling.
Former U.S. defence secretary Robert Gates recently published a memoir appearing to confirm Karzai’s suspicion, saying the then top U.S. envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan had been “doing his best to bring about the defeat of Karzai”.
Karzai’s spokesman said Washington may try to use polling as a means to influence the outcome of the April election.
“It is now crystal clear that there was interference in the election in 2009,” said Aimal Faizi.
“It puts the U.S. role behind such funding under question. Why would the U.S. fund surveys on Afghan presidential candidates?”, he said.
