Good evening listeners, this is BBC. Today, we are very delighted to have invited James Dobbins, US special representative for Afghanistan, to tell us the electoral process in Afghanistan currently.Well, James, how are you reading what's happening in Afghanistan at the moment?We're concerned about the trend in events. We have been concerned for some time that the electoral process hasn't been moving forward smoothly.We believe there needs to be a powerful and transparent audit of potentially dishonest ballots and we're sorry that hasn't moved forward quickly and substantially enough.We regret the preliminary announcement of results that was made yesterday.We think that was premature given that there are still a number of ballots that need to be examined and there's not yet a clear agreement on how best to do so. We do believe that...Forgive me for interrupting, James. Can I ask you why you think that announcement was made yesterday?I think it was made because the electoral institutions had previously set that date and they held to it despite advice to the contrary from the UN, from the United States, and from other voices within Afghanistan, and we think that was unfortunate.Is there another reason that could be slightly more favorable, that is, they wanted to prepare the ground because if they just came out with one final result at the end of all this then it can be pretty likely that the loser, whoever it was going to be, was going to complain because they think it is unfair?
