'Guarded optimism' over Afghanistan's presidential polls despite fraud claims

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/afghanistan-presidential-election-concerns

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Afghanistan's presidential election, set for next April and already dogged by allegations of fraud, is likely to be made even more complicated by a second round of voting, a delegation of election experts have said.

Afghanistan's constitution requires any outright winner to get more than 50% in an initial poll, otherwise the top two vote winners must compete in a runoff.

With 11 candidates, including powerful ex-ministers, the brother of the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and relatives of the ousted royal family, most people working on the election have accepted that it will not be settled outright, a delegation organised by the US-based National Democratic Institute found.

"Virtually everybody, maybe with one exception, thought that a runoff would be very likely," said Peter Manikas, NDI's Asia director, after meeting Karzai, all the candidates, election administrators, civil society activists and others involved with the poll.

The first round is set for 4 April, and the second round should be held two weeks after the final results of that ballot are announced. Karzai's term ends in late May, so in theory that provides a deadline for choosing his successor.

But setting up a second poll in a country with a serious insurgency, and infrastructure so weak that in some areas ballots are transported on donkeys, makes that a very tight timetable.

"There is concern about the timeline for the runoff and the short preparation time," Manikas added. "[The independent election commission] are going to have to, I think, revisit that timeline and see what is realistic."

Discussion of a second round may irritate Karzai, whose spokesman has previously cited comments by top US diplomats that they were expecting a second round of voting as evidence of American plans to interfere in the vote.

The last presidential poll in 2009, which returned Karzai to power, was marred by allegations of widespread fraud. A dispute between the Afghan leader and his US backers over the results badly damaged ties and has been followed by years of escalating tensions.

The NDI is mostly funded by the US government, and the delegation was led by the US ambassador, Karl Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of state who first visited Afghanistan more than two decades ago. But it also included a senior Filipino official from the Asian Network for Free Elections and a former Canadian member of parliament.

The group said that overall they found "guarded optimism" that next year's elections would be better run than those held in 2009 and 2010, after a series of key reforms including a new legal framework.

"If broadly viewed by the Afghan people as inclusive and transparent, the upcoming polls could play a pivotal role in advancing stability and democratic development," the group said in a statement detailing their findings.

But they also admitted that there had already been controversy about a candidate registration process that had seen the field of would-be presidential contenders narrowed down by half, with little transparency about who was excluded or why.

Many candidates for provincial councils, which will be selected at the same time, were also barred, with little or no explanation, and the voter registration cards needed to validate any candidacy were widely reported to be available for sale on the black market.

"We are concerned that a number of people who should have been eligible candidates were excluded from the process and some who were ineligible were in fact included," said Manikas, adding that there had been a lack of transparency.

"It wasn't a propitious start," he told the news conference. "It's extremely important to have observers at every stage of this process."

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