Kabul, April 13: Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan will not be completely fraud-free but efforts are being made to crack down on vote-rigging, the acting head of the country’s main electoral body said.
Zekria Barakzai, the deputy chief electoral officer at the Independent Election Commission (IEC), said “a full package of anti-fraud measures” would be implemented to prevent a repeat of last year’s tainted presidential vote.
But he said there were no guarantees of a completely free and fair election, particularly with poor security in some tribal areas, where Taliban militants fiercely opposed to Afghanistan’s Western-backed government hold sway.
“I would not say that fraud will be totally eliminated but we will try our best that it will not damage the integrity and acceptability (of the elections) by the Afghan people,” Barakzai told AFP in an interview.
Barakzai is currently in charge of the government-appointed IEC following the resignation last week of its chairman, Azizullah Ludin, and his immediate boss, chief electoral officer, Daoud Ali Najafi.
Both men had been under pressure to quit after overseeing last year’s presidential election, which saw widespread ballot-stuffing in favour of the incumbent Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
Reform at the very top of the IEC was seen as vital to secure foreign funding for the vote amid accusations that the organisation had a pro-Karzai bias and was packed with his cronies.
Elections for Afghanistan’s Wolosi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, were originally due to be held in May but were postponed to September due to funding concerns and the spiralling Taliban insurgency.
Barakzai said the ballot — the second parliamentary poll since the Taliban’s removal from power in late 2001 — was a chance to “repair the damage of 2009” and restore the IEC’s credibility.
“I don’t want to be associated with fraudulent elections that the people of Afghanistan won’t accept,” he said, threatening to resign if the vote is tarnished.
No timeframe has been set for the appointment of a new IEC chairman and chief electoral officer but a swift announcement would help the vote go smoothly, Barakzai suggested.
“We want it (the appointment) as soon as possible,” he said in an interview at the heavily-fortified IEC compound in eastern Kabul.
“If the decision is made late it will be very difficult for us to successfully conduct elections.
“For the chairman, because it’s a political position, a person should be impartial. He should not side with or be affiliated to any parties. He should be a good representative of the Afghan people.
“For the secretariat, it should be a technical elections specialist. He should know the nuts and bolts of elections.”
Barakzai, a career diplomat who has worked at the IEC for six years, declined to speculate on possible candidates and said he did not know if his name was in the frame as Najafi’s successor.
He declined to say if he wants the job permanently.
One name mentioned in official circles for Ludin’s post is Mohammad Yasin Osmani, the current head of Afghanistan’s anti-corruption bureau, who is said to be “more than 50 percent” sure of securing the post.
Karzai is under pressure from the international community to crack down on corruption and improve good governance but caused outrage last month by claiming that foreign powers orchestrated last year’s electoral fraud.
Barakzai said vetting of would-be candidates by the UN-backed Election Complaints Commission (ECC), moves for the IEC to have sole control over ballot papers, ballot boxes and results sheets could help cut fraud.
Provincial elections officers have also been reassigned from their home territories and none secure areas identified early, he added.
But he called for understanding about the scale of the task after IEC staff were killed and injured during the presidential election, as the Taliban tried to prevent people from voting.
“It’s a very difficult job to run an election,” he said. “People should understand that Afghanistan is not America or Europe. We’re in the middle of a war… Please don’t expect a northern European standard.”
—Agencies