Also complicating the picture is a perception President Karzai, to gain electoral support, has allied with brutal warlords and others accused of either human rights abuses or drug trafficking.
VOA: standard.2009.08.29
Governments, the United Nations system as well as other multilateral organizations are urged to increase considerably the resources allocated to programmes aiming at the establishment and strengthening of national legislation, national institutions and related infrastructures which uphold the rule of law and democracy, electoral assistance, human rights awareness through training, teaching and education, popular participation and civil society.
The government, it says, has "to introduce legislative proposals to amend the electoral law imposing a blanket restriction on voting rights of convicted prisoners in prison, and achieve compliance with the Court's judgment".
The strident vilification campaign was accompanied by wide-spread intimidation, arbitrary arrests and brutal beatings, as well as electoral mischief, that openly flouted Russian constitutional rights as well as international political and human rights norms to which Russia is a signatory.