Putting low voter turnout claims to our man in Afghanistan

The UK ambassador in Kabul gave journalists in London a teleconference briefing today about the Afghan elections and it’s blown a bit of wind into the sails of a story The Times reported last week.

An employee of the independent election commission in Afghanistan told the paper that only 150 had turned out to vote in Babaji district, part of the area UK forces re-took in Operation Panther’s Claw at a cost of 10 dead and an estimated 150 wounded.

The problem is that the ambassador couldn’t rubbish the figure to us. It may be right. It may not.

The full figures are not now expected until 17-21 September and even that deadline could slip. Instead ambassador Mark Sedwill gave various reasons why turnout was expected to be low.

The area had only just been re-taken from Taliban forces who had intimidated the population with threats. Voters in the Afghan elections didn’t have to vote in their nearest polling station as in the UK.

Mr Sedwill thinks some may have preferred to vote in safer areas.

But given the number of UK forces lost and wounded in this area, headlines will proclaim gruesome equations of cost and benefit. Unfair and unproven, the Foreign Office says, but another blow to support for the Afghan war.