Saturday June 4, 2016
Kabul (BNA) The government of national unity said it was making effort to hold the parliamentary election amid the criticisms over a nontransparent process, unless reforms were not secured in the electoral commissions.
President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani announced to have instructed the security organs for doing more to take security of the upcoming parliamentary and districts councils elections and asked the ministry of finance to share the issue with the international donors for the budget as well as assure them of the government’s commitment for outlaying the needed portion.
Meanwhile, the national Security Council emphasizing on the importance of the parliamentary elections called on all the security entities to accelerate the related legal programs.
A number of the electoral monitoring institutions called bringing reforms in the electoral commissions, very important for holding a fair and transparent process, and called on the government for practical steps in this field. Formation of an electoral commission, they believed would be the first step to help the process get reformed, a move would redraw trust from the people to the process, as in this case, Nayem Ayoubzada, the head of transparent elections foundations said the electoral commission should be helped regain new feature, by employing new commissioners. “Reforms in the electoral commissions a must, as the people of Afghanistan don’t believe in the electoral commissions anymore due to wide frauds in the presidential and provincial process,” said Ayoubzada who reiterated on a transparent process to be held this year.
The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) has also called accountability of the electoral commissions, a step could help have transparent processes of both parliamentary and districts councils elections, this year. The foundation asked the electoral commissions to adopt a tough and legal program for not letting those local authorities, armed groups and powerful figures to interfere in the process and restoring a mechanism to guarantee transparency of both parliamentary and district councils’ processes. A political analyst, Akram Andishmand also believed on a reformed electoral process and said the people have lost trust in the process during the 2014’s fraudulent presidential election, which the intervention of the U.S. foreign secretary resulted in shaping the national unity government. “Now the electoral commission should get reformed to may rehabilitate the people lost confidence.”
Amir Mohammad also doubted if the electoral commissions were transparent if the exact number of the voters were not satisfied, as according to him, during the controversial presidential process, the number of voters attended the process have been noted to be higher than the exact number of the main population in some districts. He called soon distribution of the computerized Ids (tazkeras) could relatively tackle the problems and prevent widespread frauds in the upcoming parliamentary process. “Fundamental change in the electoral commissions would also widely help restore the people trust towards the process and induce them to go the polling centers for voting their favorite candidates,” said Amir Mohammad, a political critic.
Suraya Raiszada
