Election; the success of peaceful transition of power and possible crisis
For the first time in Afghanistan, the power is being transferred from one elected president to another, after twelve years of falling the Taliban regime and intervention of foreign troops. The first round election on April 5th was conducted along with insecurity, frauds and other problems; but after the second round held on June 14, seems that the success of this process is not without problems.
According to the past experience of conducting election and background of IEC and IECC, how was the transparency of the last round of election? What were the reasons behind the problems emerged in election process? And finally where the result of this election might lead?
Election commissions and the experience of the previous rounds of election:
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) was founded in 2006 for management and observation of elections. This commission has managed the presidential election in 2009 which led to electing Hamid Karzai as the president of Afghanistan, and then conducted parliamentary election in 2010 and finally conducted the last (2014) election.
Before establishment of the IEC the presidential election of 2004, and parliamentary election of 2005 conducted by UNAMA with coordination of the Joint Electoral Management Body. In that time as well, some accusations of fraud has been registered; but the irregularities increased in the last three rounds of election, and the serious ones were insecurity, frauds and interventions.
The trust over accepting the election’s result became weak in 2009 after one of the candidates of that round of election Mr. Abdullah Abdullah rejected to accept the results of the election citing widespread fraud. Later in 2010 during the parliamentary election a special court has been founded for investigating the fraud accusations.
In the latest round of election (2014) the same problems repeated, but in the second round of election the IEC, IECC and national and international observers said the frauds in comparison with the first round were in low level, but in spite of all these, one of the candidates Mr. Abdullah Abdullah rejected to accept the result because of what he considered as widespread frauds for the benefit of his rival Mr. M. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Independent Electoral Complaints Commission was also founded in 2009, in which two foreign nationals were also members with three other Afghan members of the commission. In 2010 parliamentary election the government tried to reduce the influence of the foreigners and therefore after that election no foreign national is member of the commission.
2014 Election:
Because of plurality of candidates the election went to run-off and the two vote leading candidates went for rivalry in the second round election, and by trying to bring more parties to their tickets the fear of ethnicity divination also became high.
Obviously, they both were rivaling with the sense success; but it was also eminent that both of them by jealously allying with other parities thinking that they are the winners and the culture of accepting the winner was not seen and the sense of accepting the result of a process which conducted at cost of lives of some Afghans.
Now, when one of the candidates rejected to accept the result of the election, the fear of possible political crisis also got higher, however the government and the president rejected possibilities of such crisis.
On the other hand, some parties within the government or outside the government see their benefits in presidency of one of the candidates; so they working in the favor of the candidates, which paves the way to challenges against peacefully transferring the power from one elected president to another elected president.
The results
By ending the polling process, both of the candidates showed their satisfaction from the process and committed that they will wait until the counting of ballots and consideration of the complaints and finally to the results. Both of them were satisfied by the widespread participation of the people. The national and international observers also called this round of election more transparent than the previous one.
But one of the candidates with clearing of the initial results accused one of the high ranking officials of the IEC and with this pretext abounded process. But according to the reactions to the demands of Abdullah Abdullah, it seems that his accusation will not challenge the continuation of the process.
Need of peaceful transferring the power
However it seems that one of the candidates who gained less ballots will not accept the result, but since the second round has been considered more successful by national and international parities the transferring process of power will not be faced serious challenges, however in the context of Afghanistan such disagreements will be existed.
On the other hand, the frauds are possible and therefore the IECC is formed for consideration of the electoral complaints, and since a candidate joined the rivalry under the regulations of these two commissions than rejects to accept its results would be affectless. The frauds in election which exist in the elections of all over the world and losing the power by one candidate must not be cause the ignore all the process which conducted with cost of lives of some Afghans. Each electoral complaint must be considered transparently so that both of the candidates accept the results, because other ways for gaining the power in the current situation of Afghanistan is not in the benefit of Afghanistan.
Credibility of the future government and the possible crisis
One of the candidates Mr. Abdullah Abdullah accused the president and the two electoral commissions with not being neutral which raised the concerns that the role of the government will be weak in the mediate role for solving the problems.
The spokesperson of UNAMA also called the position of Abdullah Abdullah as regrettable and demanded the continuation of counting the ballots. Also the government of Afghanistan and international community showed their will for helping the success of the process and saving the credibility of the future government; but with all that the credibility and the possible political crisis are from the concerns that Afghans and political parties have.