Afghan election campaigning kicks off amid fraud claims
KABUL: Campaigning for Afghanistan’s long- delayed parliamentary elections kicks off yesterday, as a crescendo of deadly violence and claims of widespread fraud fuel debate over whether the vote will go ahead.
More than 2,500 candidates will contest the Oct 20 poll, which is seen as a test run for next year’s presidential vote and a key milestone ahead of a UN meeting in Geneva where Afghanistan is under pressure to show progress on ‘democratic processes’.
But preparations for the ballot, which is more than three years late, have been in turmoil for months, despite UN-led efforts to keep Afghan organisers on track.
Bureaucratic inefficiency, allegations of industrial- scale fraud and now an eleventh-hour pledge for biometric verification of voters threaten to derail the election and any hope of a credible result. It will be ‘ highly flawed’, a Western diplomat admitted to AFP this week, reflecting falling expectations across Kabul’s international community, which is providing most of the funding for the elections.
The Independent Election Commission ( IEC) has insisted voting will go ahead, with or without the biometric machines that have been demanded by opposition groups to prevent people from voting more than once. Only 4,400 out of the 22,000 Germanmade machines ordered have been delivered to Afghanistan, officials said.
“They have promised (biometric verification) and they may do it, but will it be successful in dispelling the concerns? I’m doubtful,” Afghanistan Analysts Network researcher Ali Yawar Adili told AFP.
Parliament is supposed to be the house of the people. Instead it has become a place for mafia networks, corruption, and those who work for their own interests.
The list of candidates, which has been trimmed to 2,565 after 35 were expelled, are competing for 249 seats in the lower house, whose members are widely derided as corrupt and ineffective.
Most MPs are seeking reelection. But hundreds of political first-timers – including the offspring of former warlords, entrepreneurs and journalists – are also contesting the vote.
“Parliament is supposed to be the house of the people. Instead it has become a place for mafia networks, corruption, and those who work for their own interests,” said former TV journalist Maryam Sama, 26, who is running in Kabul province.
“If anyone can bring real change, it is the young people.”
The international community is pushing hard for the vote to happen before November’s ministerial meeting in Geneva, which the United Nations says is a ‘crucial moment’ for the Afghan government and its foreign partners to demonstrate progress.
But a wave of deadly violence across the country in recent months has raised concerns that parliamentary elections could end up being a bloody rehearsal for the presidential vote scheduled for April. — AFP
Maryam Sama, former TV journalist who is running in Kabul province