Afghan election auditors at the Independent Electoral Commission in eastern Kabul. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
KABUL, Aug 20 2014 (IPS)

A knife fight late Tuesday among several auditors at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) still inspecting the results of the presidential elections held in mid-June could be the stab in the back for what has been a painful election process.

The vote audit process was resumed following a three-hour delay on Wednesday, a commission official said.

Two months after Afghans voted in a second runoff for election of the country’s president, ballots are being recounted amid growing questions on who is really arbitrating the process."What we see is what we expected: an endless fight between the two sides as each ballot is disputed” – Thijs Berman, chief observer of the European Union

The four corrugated iron barracks east of Kabul that constitute the centre of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan in which the 22,828 ballot boxes are piled up, have become the Afghan insurgency´s main target.

In the June 14 runoff, presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai won 56.44 percent of the votes, while his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, received 43.56 percent, despite having been the most voted candidate in the first runoff on April 5.

The turnout was equally surprising: eight million out of 12 million voters, an unlikely figure given that most polling stations were reportedly empty on election day.

With Abdullah Abdullah’s allegations of massive fraud having put the electoral process on the brink of collapse, the two candidates were persuaded to agree to a full ballot recount.

In an audit that started mid-July, the ballot boxes are being examined by a team formed by auditors of both candidates and members of the IEC. Afghan as well as European Union observers are also on the spot in a process closely monitored by U.N. assistants.

“I have spent the last two weeks taking part in this massive farce,” Abdullah Abdullah´s auditor Munir Latifi told IPS. “The United Nations and the Independent Electoral Commission are working together so that Ghani takes the win but there´s nobody supporting us,” he said before returning to his seat.

Latifi has to discuss whether the handwritten “V”, “X” or a circle on each candidate´s tick box is repeated in several of the ballots, or if it is really “one person, one vote”. Boxes suspicious of fraud are put in quarantine and records are taken by hand in a notebook.

Resources may look scarce but Shazad Ayubee, a Pashtun from Paktiya in southeast Afghanistan and one of Ghani´s auditors, told IPS he was “a hundred percent” satisfied with the process, although “things would be smoother if Abdullah´s auditors didn´t struggle to delay the publication of the results by any means necessary.”

Similar handwriting among different ballots “doesn´t necessarily imply fraud,” he added. “In the most remote villages of Afghanistan almost everybody is illiterate. Families simply show up at the polling stations and the one who can write marks their ballots,” explained Ayubee during the lunch break.

The most suspicious ballot boxes are those that arrive unlocked, the ones that boast over the maximum of 600 ballots, or even random objects such as traditional felt hats or tobacco packets. Many auditors claim that full boxes arriving from Taliban-controlled areas should be systematically discarded because the Afghan armed opposition consistently prevents the population from taking part in elections.

But Ayubee says he knows the reason behind the unexpected turn out in Taliban strongholds: “Unlike Pakistani or Uzbek Taliban, the Afghan Taliban told people to vote for Ghani because he is a Pashtun – a majority of the Afghan insurgents belong to that ethnic group. Everyone knows that Ghani will defend their interests much better than a Tajik like Abdullah Abdullah.”

Mid-morning, Noor Mohammad Noor, spokesman for the IEC, appears in the press room opposite the barracks and starts his speech with a “sincere commitment to democracy” as opposed to “unfounded rumours and lies over the development of the audit.”

The IEC spokesman describes a “joint effort of 220 IEC workers, 305 auditors for Abdullah, 306 for Ghani and 1014 international observers.”

Asked by IPS whether the auditors are skilled in graphology, Mohammad showed no sign of hesitation: “This is a process under the close guidance of the United Nations, which displays 50 advisors on a daily basis. Besides, it´s the United Nations which has the last word over the ballots.”

Final decision

Speaking to IPS by phone from his office in Brussels, Thijs Berman, chief observer of the European Union, told IPS that it was “too early” to take stock of the process. “What we see is what we expected: an endless fight between the two sides as each ballot is disputed.”

Commenting on the fact that the United Nations was acting both as adviser for the electoral process and as arbitrator in the recount, Berman said that “in countries like Spain or Holland we would have relied on a fully external body but in the case of Afghanistan we are dealing with very young institutions that do not yet have a significant credibility.”

“I agree that the U.N. role can be criticised, but what is the alternative,” he asked before reiterating that the E.U. delegation is determined to conduct its work “even in the case that the United Nations does not fulfil its part.”

Despite repeated calls and emails from IPS, the U.N. spokesman only agreed to respond to a questionnaire sent via e-mail. Jeff Fischer, senior international expert on elections and head of the U.N. Independent Electoral Commission advisory team, labelled the scale and scope of the audit as “unprecedented in the history of the United Nations.”

He stressed that all the auditors had received training on IEC procedures and invalidation and recount criteria before they could start working as advisors.

Regarding rumours concerning alleged U.N. backing for the Pashtun candidate, Fischer was blunt: “Final decisions as to whether votes are valid or invalid are taken by the IEC Board of Commissioners.”

Confusion over who has the last word in the audit grows while pressure from the outside strives to break the poll deadlock.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has recently warned that the alliance will be forced to take a decision regarding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan unless the new Afghan president signs the security agreements.

According to Rasmussen, the NATO summit scheduled for September 4-5 in Wales would be “very close” to a deadline for taking that decision.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

A worker for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan carries a box of votes. Credit: Giuliano Battiston/IPS

By Giuliano Battiston
LAKSHKARGAH, Afghanistan, Jun 20 2014 (IPS)

With protests erupting Thursday over alleged voter fraud during Afghanistan’s first-ever democratic transfer of power, and presidential hopeful Abdullah Abdullah announcing his intention to boycott the electoral process, ordinary Afghans are beginning to despair that they will ever start to feel a sense of normalcy in their country, ravaged by years of civil war.

According to provisional data seven million people – roughly 60 percent of the electorate – came out to cast their votes on Saturday Jun. 14, standing as testament to the fact that scores of Afghans wish to participate in a democratic political process.

“Our country is economically very weak and [Ashraf] Ghani is the right man to solve our problems.” -- Said Faizalahq, a shopkeeper in Lashkargah, Afghanistan
Ignoring threats that the Taliban would cut off voters’ hands and fingers, millions queued at thousands of ballot boxes around the country to choose a successor for out-going President Hamid Karzai, banned by the constitution from seeking yet another mandate after 13 years in power.

The race is close, with former foreign minister and leader of the predominantly Tajik Jamiat-e-Islami Party, Abdullah Abdullah, pulling in 45 percent of the vote during the first round of elections, partly owing to his fierce and vocal opposition to the Taliban.

But Ashraf Ghani, a popular Pashtun politician who served as finance minister and chancellor of Kabul University, won many hearts in the run-up to the election due to his strong economic platform.

Some commentators believe that Abdullah’s denouncement of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), and his allegations that massive ballot box stuffing could swing the final results in Ghani’s favour, are a response to the latter’s growing popularity.

Abdullah, meanwhile, has refuted such claims, standing by his belief that over a million votes were fraudulently cast. Indeed, the Transparent Election Foundation for Afghanistan, an independent group whose 9,000 observers monitored the voting, says the IEC’s projection appears too high, adding that six million voters is a more realistic projection.

But while political wrangling has stolen the spotlight for the time being, thousands of Afghans continue to hold out hope that when the results are announced on Jul. 22, the chosen candidate can get down to the real businesses of mending the ailing country.

Economic recovery before political reform?

Hailing from the Helmand province in the ‘Pashtun belt’ of southern Afghanistan, 60-year-old Haji Mohammad Asif tells IPS he voted for Ghani in the hopes that he will “improve the economy and make the country independent from external sources.”

Asif is a member of a local tribal ‘shura’, a council comprised of 8,300 families who live in Lashkargah, capital of the Helmand Province, but whose roots are in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Nuristan, Laghman and Kunar.

The head of the council, 35-year-old Mohammad Asif Mohammadi, told IPS, “We collectively decided to vote for Ghani; he has skills and high education, he is honest, he was not involved in past crimes. He will bring peace to the country.”

Although they number only a few thousand, this council represents a popular current in Afghanistan, which favours Ghani’s promise of economic stability over Abdullah’s pledge to bring political security.

By way of explaining their loyalties, other Ghani supporters called IPS’ attention to the two candidates’ seemingly opposite personal histories: while Ghani was teaching economics at the Maryland-based Johns Hopkins University, Abdullah, a trained doctor, was providing medical aid to the anti-Soviet mujahideen fighters in the Panjshir Valley in north-central Afghanistan.

And in 1992, following the collapse of the pro-Soviet government headed by then-president Mohammad Najibullah, Abdullah became the spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense in the newly established Islamic State of Afghanistan, while Ghani was busy planning structural adjustment programmes at the World Bank.

“Our country is economically very weak and Ghani is the right man to solve our problems,” a shopkeeper named Said Faizalahq told IPS outside a school in Lashkargah, one of 683 makeshift polling stations that were erected across Helmand, according to the IEC.

Nearly 90 percent of Afghanistan’s state revenue comes from international donors, who have already reduced their financial support substantially, due to the partial withdrawal of foreign troops.

According to the latest forecast by the World Bank, economic growth plummeted in 2013 to an estimated 3.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from 14.4 percent in 2012, possibly as a result of investors’ concerns about the security situation in the country.

“After a decade of strong revenue growth, domestic revenues declined to 9.5 percent of GDP in 2013, from 10.3 percent in 2012 and a peak of 11.6 percent in 2011,” the document stated. “Economic growth is projected to remain weak at 3.2 percent in 2014 due to heightened uncertainty and lower agriculture output.”

A bleak outlook, but one that Ghani has promised to rectify by consolidating the economy and utilising the country’s vast, untapped mineral resources, an asset considered to be worth up to three trillion dollars.

His five-year economic plan promises to focus on agriculture, the construction of a railway network, a reduction in taxes and a pledge to boost the country’s local carpet industry.

Abdullah, meanwhile, appeals to those voters who wish to see Afghanistan’s main opposition groups (AOGs) defeated once and for all. He has also criticised Karzai’s administration for he calls its “accommodating approach” to the political situation, insisting that peace-talks cannot go ahead until the AOGs collectively renounce violence.

This position has won Abdullah support among those who see no future for Afghanistan – economic or otherwise – without a definitive end to militarism and violence, which the last 13 years have proved to be nothing but destructive.

“If we establish a new, accountable and effective government, we are going to bring peace to the country, because one of the main conflict-drivers is corruption and [a lack of] ccountability,” Abdul Salam Zahid, director of Radio Lashkargah, told IPS.

The only issue the candidates appear to be agreed upon is the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) that promises to keep U.S. troops in the country after 2014. Karzai’s refusal to sign the accord strained relationships between Afghanistan and the U.S. and endangered funding flows by international donors aimed at strengthening domestic security forces and propping up crucial reconstruction programmes.

Karzai’s move found favour among many Afghans who see national sovereignty as a point of pride after years of living through a foreign occupation.

Exiting a polling station on Jun. 14, 63-year-old Abdul Rah­man told IPS, “We should be able to defend ourselves without the help of foreign countries. I do not trust the Americans. This is the reason I reject the [BSA].”

But his desire for immediate independence will be frustrated, no matter the outcome of the election, as both candidates have vowed to make the signing of the BSA a priority should they be elected to office at the end of July.

(END)