ECC and the Afghan Elections Mystery

By: Zabihullah Noori
The Afghanistan Presidential Elections could have not been more complicated than this. Insecurity for voters in parts of the county, abuse of power by the incumbent Karzai, fraud in the process of elections and many other challenges caused the postponement of the elections’ result. The latest turn in the game seems to be masterminded by Karzai’s team, according to his toughest competitor, Dr. Abdullah’s aide. Mr. Mustafa Barkzai, one of the two Afghan members of the Electoral Complaint Commission (ECC) resigned from his post, claiming that foreigners are interfering in the process and Afghans have very limited authority.

The second Afghan presidential elections have been controversial from the first days of establishment of the Afghanistan Independent Elections Commission (IEC). The commission was created and the members were appointed by Karzai. Therefore, most of the runners in the race doubted the independence of the IEC. According to some people, Karzai’s ambition for the second term goes beyond the IEC. It looks like Mr. Karzai had placed a person or two in every corner to ensure his victory in the race.
From the first days after the elections, local, national and international observers questioned the fairness of the process, simply because of the massive fraud in the polling stations and in the IEC.

The IEC staff tried to cover up Karzai’s fraud and their inefficiency as much as they could. The IEC head the deputy appeared in almost every TV and radio and boasted about the fairness in the process. But as the fraud was done vastly, they failed to stop the media and international observers from raising their voices.
Finally, the decision was made for the ECC to recount the doubtful votes. And since Karzai’s appointed agent—Mr. Barkzai— was in the ECC, he would inform Karzai of every day’s latest reports in the commission. It seems that Karzai’s fraud was caught to a larger extent; therefore his dream of becoming the president for the second term did not come true. Karzai played his last trick —asking Barkazai to resign from the ECC— so he can claim that the ECC was not independent.

However, it has become too late for Karzai to make people believe another of his political white lies. As Mr. Registani told AP, “ Barkzai’s resignation is related to Karzai. It was Karzai’s idea.”

With all these turns and twists, the ECC is expected to announce its findings about the fraud in the elections by the end of this week.

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah who has been claiming that Karzai’s team had committed fraud in the process, believes that if the ECC does its job properly, the Afghan elections will go to the next round, in which he expects to defeat incumbent Karzai.