true programme of national unity, while Sayed Abdul Hadi Dabir, an amateur boxer and former fighter in the Mujahedin, criticised tribal nepotism in government appointments and called for a national Ulema to be formed as part of the elected parliament. Campaigning and voting Ballots contained the names of candidates, accompanied by their photo and an icon of their choice. Where appropriate, the icon was the symbol of their political party. However, most candidates ran as independents regardless of their party affiliation, and selected generic icons to distinguish their candidacy. In order to avoid voting fraud, voters dipped their thumb in ink after they had cast their ballot. In Afghanistan, polling centres opened at 6 am or 7 am in different areas, and were set to close at 4 pm. However, on election day, voting time was officially extended by two hours, but several polling centres closed on time before news of this announcement reached them. Very significantly, over two million people voted among refugee communities in Iran and Pakistan, thanks to an operation conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) through a remarkable logistic effort. In Peshawar, Pakistan, under the leadership of Stuart Poucher, a small team from IOM managed in less than two months to hire over 400 electoral officers, and over 6,000 polling officials, to conduct voter education for over 800,000 refugees, over half of whom voted. Controversies During the campaign there were some rumours that the election would be decided by negotiation, as candidates bargained for promises of political position under Karzai or another candidate in return for dropping out of the race. There were rumours in September that Sirat and Mohaqiq had formed a pact with Qanuni, whilst Gailani and Aarian declared their support for Karzai on the last day of campaigning, October 6. All the candidates except Karzai, Gailani and Aarian, publicly declared that they were boycotting the ballot and would ignore the results— effectively uniting Karzai's disparate opponents. Two major opposition candidates, the Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqeq and the Uzbek strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum, soon declared they had not joined the boycott. Election fraud Significant fraud occurred in the 2004 presidential election, even though it did not attract the level of international attention as the fraud in the 2009 presidential election. On election day there were several claims that the ink used to mark voters could be easily removed and that multiple