First the writing of the constitution was considered an impossible task and that was done. After postponing the elections once, Afghans had their chance to vote for their President. But there has been one problem with the indelible ink which was donated by India.
Three years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghans voted in massive numbers Saturday to elect their president for the first time. But the historic and largely peaceful poll quickly fell under a cloud of uncertainty as 15 candidates alleged irregularities and fraud and said they would deem any result “illegitimate.”
The dispute centered on the supposedly indelible ink applied to voters’ thumbs to prevent them from casting ballots more than once. In many precincts, voters said, washable ink was used or indelible ink was applied improperly, allowing the marking to rub off easily and opening the door to repeat voting.[Afghan Votes in Security, but Fraud Allegations Arise]
On BBC News, there was one of the Presidential candidates showing his fingers after voting and his fingers were clean. I have voted many times in Indian elections and all the time the ink would stay for few days and then disappear. So what happened ? Was it the ink that failed ?From a caption under the photo in the Washington Post, it seems the election officials applied regular ink instead of the indelible ink.
