The prognosis is bleak: every new setback is a nail in the coffin of democracy much to the frustration of people.
On Aug 27, Dr Abdullah Abdullah carried out his threat and pulled out his observers from the process of ballot scrutiny.
The prognosis is bleak: every new setback is a nail in the coffin of democracy much to the frustration of people.
On Aug 27, Dr Abdullah Abdullah carried out his threat and pulled out his observers from the process of ballot scrutiny.
The UN immediately urged his rival Ashraf Ghani to leave to the UN the responsibility of the vote audit. At a news conference in Kabul, Independent Election Commission (IEC) deputy chief Abdur Rahman Hotaki said the audit process, which is nearly complete, will soon resume.
Frustration on the street to every setback to the election process is palpable.
Hamid Ferozi in Kabul wishes presidential rivals, doctors Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, would think more about the nation. “The candidates should shun betting and be ashamed about taking people hostage. If they were to think more about the nation they would feel shame, and not play with the country’s destiny any more,” Ferozi said.
Latifa Alema, a political science student, shares his view. “The two statesmen should think about people, and stop thirsting for power,” she said.
On Aug 26, Abdullah’s team said areas where they wanted votes to be invalidated because of fraud have not been done. “If they accept our demands by tomorrow morning we will continue the process. If not, we will withdraw from the process and consider it finished,” Fazel Ahmad Manawi, a senior member of Abdullah’s campaign team, told reporters. The UN and United States have urged the rivals to allow the process to be continued and then to respect the outcome.
Manawi claimed the team has done its best to prevent the breakdown of the election process “for the sake of people who are waiting” to have an elected government. The team has dialogued with the UN side as well, and submitted five points on how to proceed with the audit. “The audit has confirmed that there has been widespread fraud in the election.”
Hands-on role in audit
There has been an “exceptional” level of consultation and joint oversight of the audit, according to an Aug 26 statement issued by the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, Ján Kubiš.
“The July 12 Agreement reached between Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Dr Ashraf Ghani required that the two campaigns have joint oversight of the audit … It is highly unusual for the parties in an electoral contest to be given such prominence in designing the procedures to audit its results or to have such a hands-on role in the actual physical auditing,” according to the statement.
These unusual measures were agreed to help restore confidence in the electoral process following the impasse that emerged after the announcement of preliminary results on July 7.
Since July 12 the UN leadership has held more than 30 meetings with the two presidential candidates to discuss the audit, as well as daily meetings with both teams at the technical level.
The audit checklist was one result of the July 12 negotiations between Dr Abdullah and Dr Ghani and is included in the actual text of the technical framework agreement.
On Aug 26, while Abdullah’s campaign team led by Manawi were threatening to walk out of the audit, Abdullah was in discussions with Ashraf Ghani about the formation of a national unity government, which they have both promised to support. Both have also held a meeting with President Hamid Karzai to decide when a successor is likely to be sworn-in.
Fast-paced developments
Taher Zahir, a spokesperson for Ashraf Ghani’s Change and Continuity team, said the two candidates met Karzai and both his vice-presidents in the president’s office.
Zahir said with the auditing of 90 percent of the 8 million votes cast in the runoff on June 14, the two presidential hopefuls could have used the occasion to celebrate the completion of the election process over the fine feast prepared for the meeting by President Karzai. Challenging Manawi’s contention that his leader, Dr Abdullah, had unresolved issues about the election, Zahir said the two leaders “went to Karzai with a joint and united viewpoint”. He insisted that Manawi was not representing the views of Abdullah’s Reform and Unanimity team but his own personal views.
The fast-paced developments have changed the situation.
With every passing day there are fresh tensions and complications regarding the outcome of the poll. The paralysis of the past five months has pushed the economy into crisis. Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal estimated a capital flight of 6 billion USD. The government may not be able to pay salaries if the election dispute is not resolved. Any backlash against the result could trigger fresh breaks in the deeply divided country.
Nayeem Ayubzada, the head of the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA), said: “Everyday that passes the (election) process becomes more sensitive and electoral problems increase as well …”
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