Afghan President Hamid Karzai has signed into law changes that remove foreign observers from the electoral watchdog tasked with reviewing voting fraud, his office said today.
The move could put Mr Karzai in conflict with Western donors who have said they will not fund September 18th parliamentary elections without electoral reforms, following a 2009 presidential election beset by massive fraud.
The five-member Electoral Complaints Commission previously had three members appointed by the United Nations, and last year nullified a third of Mr Karzai's votes as fraudulent.
Free and fair elections are part of a Western strategy to return the nation to stability, while a Nato-led military operation battles a renewed Taliban insurgency with the aim of returning all of Afghanistan to the Karzai-led government.
"The Afghan government for long has wanted to 'Afghanise' the electoral process and 10 days ago, the cabinet ratified the amendment and the president endorsed it," Mr Karzai's spokesman said.
He said parliament could not overturn the law, since Mr Karzai had signed it into effect when the legislature was in recess.
The change raises the prospect of criticism that the overall elections commission, which is appointed by Mr Karzai, would not be seen as independent.
The president's opponents criticised the national elections body for failing to halt last year's fraud. The UN-backed watchdog threw out nearly a third of Mr Karzai's votes, lowering his total below the 50 per cent required to avoid a run-off.
Mr Karzai was declared the winner after his main opponent pulled out before a planned second round.
Donor nations provided security and more than $230 million dollars for the poll last year. The United Nations is holding tens of millions of dollars earmarked for this year's vote, with diplomats saying they will not release the money without reforms.
Mr Karzai acknowledged some fraud at last year's poll but said its extent had been exaggerated by Western media.
Reuters