Will Afghan polls be indelibly stained by faulty ink?

KABUL, Oct 10 (AFP) - At the heart of the dispute over Afghanistan's elections is the supposedly indelible ink aimed at preventing fraud which, with a little rubbing, simply disappeared.
The ink was used at polling stations to mark voters' thumbnails or fingers after they had voted to prevent them casting more than one ballot in Saturday's historic elections.
But it was quickly found to wash or rub off with ease, erasing a crucial safeguard against multiple voting and throwing the legitimacy of the poll into question.
Citing mainly the ink problem, 14 opposition candidates including the top rival to interim President Hamid Karzai have refused to recognise the legitimacy of the polls and demanded a re-run.
They also alleged other problems, including that people voted several times with multiple cards, polls closed prematurely in areas populated by opposition supporters, and that voters were pressured to choose Karzai.
"It is not only the ink issue but there are several other unlawful acts," an aide to Karzai's main rival Yunus Qanooni said.
The ink hitch first surfaced early on in the capital Kabul but similar reports followed from other parts of Afghanistan including the west, northeast and central rural regions.
Some voters complained that the pens used to mark people's fingers were dried out, while others said electoral officials had used ink pads.
In the western city of Herat, official Ghulam Rasul said: "Some of the markers were dry and a lot of people came and said that ink was not staying.
"Nothing remains, we called the main officer in Herat he said he would send new markers but we have not received them. What should we do?"
The official line was that electoral workers had simply used the wrong pens and the vote was carrying on as normal.
"The problem has been solved and the election will continue throughout the country," senior election official Farooq Wardak said.
But his words were not enough to subdue a rising sense of disquiet, particularly amongst the opposition presidential candidates who promptly cried foul.
Announcing the boycott on behalf of the 14 who wanted to halt the election, presidential candidate Abdul Satar Sirat said: "We have seen clear intervention in the process of the election. Our representatives in Kabul and the provinces reported that there were people with multiple cards.
"There were people telling the voters to vote for Karzai. Pressure was used on voters," he said.
The only woman candidate, Masooda Jalal, told AFP she was not among the group of 14 but she made similar claims.
"There is fraud taking place in the elections, a planned fraud and an organized fraud. Everyone knows that."
The allegations of unfair practice spilled over the border into Pakistan, where the world's largest ever refugee ballot was taking place.
Engineer Maskeen, Qanooni's chief election campaign manager in Pakistan, accused the International Organisation for Migration, organisers of the refugee cote, of "encouraging voters" to choose Karzai.
"We have detected three cases in which IOM staff members were involved in stamping ballot papers in favour of Hamid Karzai," he told AFP.
"We also do not trust the people guarding ballot boxes. These people are hand-picked of our rival candidate and they can manipulate the elections in favour of their candidates."