Juan Cole has a bead on it:

There are two electoral commissions operating in Afghanistan, a wholly local and a partially international one. The local one, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan, announced Tuesday that with 90% of ballots counted, incumbent President Hamid Karzai now has 54% of the votes, enough to allow him to avoid a second-round run-off against his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah. But the other body, the United Nations-supported Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) (which has Afghan members but the head of which is a Canadian), clearly was disturbed at the IEC announcement and it ordered the IEC to conduct a recount and to throw out clearly fraudulent ballots.

In essence, the two electoral commissions have locked horns, and if the local body gets its way, Karzai may well be declared the winner hands-down. The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has the authority to order recounts, but it is probably too under-staffed and under-funded to make its objections stick. If the IEC declares for Karzai, he may well keep his job because of inertia (see: next-door Iran). On the other hand, the EEC's objections really could lead to a massive recount of over 5 million ballots, which might delay a firm result for several months.

I doubt the analysis that the EEC is "probably too under-staffed and under-funded to make its objections stick."  It is very likely under-staffed and under-funded, a weight too many UN offices are forced to suffer under, but people seem to be listening to what they have to say, and I very much doubt that the Karzai government could just sweep those objections under the rug.

What does "UN-supported" mean? According to the EEC website, it was formed under Article 52 of Afghanistan's Electoral Law and three of the five EEC commissioners are chosen by the UN Secretary General's Special Representative.  Those three commissioners --Maarten Halff, Scott Worden, and the chairman Grant Kippen -- look pretty impressive, at least on paper, having served in election monitoring capacities in Algeria, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Iraq (where Halff "advised on the development of election laws, electoral systems and complaint mechanisms"), Liberia, Nepal, Moldova, Pakistan, Timor Leste and Ukraine.

And the early word is that they have gone off without serious violence.  UN Envoy Kai Eide is optimistic:

During the visit, Mr Eide said: "I am pleased to see that so far the elections have been going quite well. I see it and hear it from the across the country that there is a good turnout."

The UN's Special Representative for Afghanistan added: "This democracy has to grow up from inside. That's why I think these elections are very important that these elections are organized by the Afghans. And we in the international community have been completely impartial with regard to who we would like to win these elections. It is so important to demonstrate that, if not, we will not have Afghan institutions that can stand up on their own feet. That is a long way to go."

Of course this makes sense, but it's also worth remembering how hard it actually is to know how much or how little violence is occurring.  Afghan officials don't want to publish or publicize incidents of Taliban violence, and international observers don't want to get so close to the process that they are seen as interfering.  For now, scanning Twitter (#Afghanelections and #Afghan09) might give one a sense of what's going on on the ground, but I can't help but be skeptical of the incomplete picture this gives; how many Afghans are Twitterers anyway?

At any rate, conducting these elections is an impressive step.  There are sure to be improprieties, and, unfortunately, insurgent attacks, but millions of Afghans are voting, and the world is paying attention.

(image from UNAMA)

Neocon and former occupation mouthpiece Coalition Provisional Authority spokesperson Dan Senor on the upcoming Kurdish elections:

On Saturday, the Kurds vote on a new parliament and president. While polls show that President Massoud Barzani and the two largest Kurdish parliamentary parties will be re-elected, the dynamic of this election is making Kurdish leaders nervous. Historically, Kurdish elections turned on the KRG’s power struggle with the national government. But in this election, the Iraqi Kurds seem to be more preoccupied with local governance issues such as KRG corruption. This may be prompting KRG officials to foment tension with Baghdad in the hope that the perception of external threats will strengthen their position at the polls. [emphasis mine]

He uses this analysis to argue for increasing not decreasing U.S. troop presence in Kurdistan.  I don't buy that, but I also don't buy the logic underlying it.  If Kurdish voters are mostly concerned about corruption in their own government, then their votes are most likely going to be in response to corruption in their own government.  Kurdish politicians can try to foment all the tension they'd like (over the next three days), but that's not likely to assuage their constituencies' concerns about corruption.

Senor seems to be doing a little fomenting himself here.  If there's tension between Kurdistan and Baghdad, then he can argue for a greater U.S. military troop presence (and conveniently oppose the president's agenda).  And there's nothing to reduce tension like an enduring occupation force.

During the past two decades, the quantity of weapons-usable nuclear material safeguarded by the [International Atomic Energy Agency] has increased tenfold without a corresponding growth in funding.

That's from a great article by Richard Weitz at World Politics Review, on the challenges facing incoming IAEA director Yukiya Amano.

The thrust of the piece -- that Amano is facing some really difficult challenges -- underscores a point that we didn't really make in our coverage of the contentious IAEA elections: that whoever its director is, be (s)he from the global North or South, the IAEA's success will depend mostly on the countries that make up its members -- and, of course, donors.

Point is, IAEA countries will have to pony up.  The Obama Administration has requested a twofold increase in funding from the U.S., which is good, so long as it follows through.  It also makes current director Mohamed El Baradei's request for an 11% budget increase seem eminently reasonable.

On the operational side, the countries that aren't meeting their commitments to the agency -- or are flouting them -- need to either fall in line, or face the possibility that the IAEA be strengthened enough to be able to levy automatic sanctions on rule-breakers, which is an option that Weitz raises in his piece.

Let's hope Amano is getting ready for his tenure to begin in November, but, even more so, let's hope that every country -- from the nuclear powers to the nuclear longshots -- will support him more than they have his predecessor.