Uh-oh

This is not good news:

Afghanistan's historic presidential election turned sour Saturday when all 15 candidates opposing U.S.-backed interim President Hamid Karzai withdrew in the middle of voting, charging the government and the United Nations with fraud and incompetence.

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The boycott was a blow to the international community, which spent almost $200 million staging the vote. At least 12 election workers, and dozens of Afghan security forces, died in the past few months as the nation geared up for the vote.

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It was a starkly different scene in Kabul, where the opposition candidates met at the house of Uzbek candidate Abdul Satar Sirat and signed a petition saying they would not recognize the vote results.

Sirat, an ex-aide to Afghanistan's last king and a minor candidate expected to poll in the low single-digits, said all 15 challengers to Karzai agreed to the boycott.

"Today's election is not a legitimate election. It should be stopped and we don't recognize the results," Sirat said. "This vote is a fraud and any government formed from it is illegitimate."

Islamic poet Abdul Latif Padran, another minor candidate, said, "Today was a very black day. Today was the occupation of Afghanistan by America through elections."

Of concern is how the people react to this. Stay tuned.