The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has not been able to announce the preliminary results of parliamentary election for Kabul province about three months after it was held on October 20, 2018. The delay has invited criticisms, with representatives of political parties and election watchdogs alleging that IEC’s warehouses have become “vote selling centers”.
IEC completely failed to manage the Wolesi Jirga election. Even with about three-year-long delay, the electoral bodies could not hold a relatively transparent election that is acceptable to both voters and candidates. From widespread irregularities during election to recurrent delays in election results, the entity constantly proved its debacle. Despite repeated promises to unveil the preliminary election results for Kabul, IEC says a recount is still underway, but there are serious questions and criticism vis-à-vis its transparency. The election commission that could not announce the initial results in almost three months will require even more time for the final results. When IEC is unable to declare the results of one election in three months, one can clearly realize how shameless the commission has been in making a decision to hold three elections all together this year. The further the delay in announcement of election results, the more there will be questions and concerns about the transparency of the results. While it is the responsibility of the electoral bodies to separate genuine and fraudulent votes, paving the way for electoral fraud and engineering election results under the pretext of vote recount is a total disrespect for the will of Afghan people. By learning a lesson at least from its failure on the day of election, the election commission should have acted responsibly in announcing the results on time.
Taking into account the sensitivity of the country’s situation and the decision to hold three elections— presidential, provincial and district council—at the same time, the initial results for Kabul should be announced as soon as possible, followed by the final results of Wolesi Jirga election for all provinces, or else the current political crisis can affect and extend into the upcoming elections. To avoid that, the government, international community, civil society and other election stakeholders should press IEC not to further postpone the announcement of results.
