Govt Steps Up Efforts To Roll Out Elections

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پنجشنبه 20 جوزا 1395 ساعت 17:00 نوشته شده توسط Anisa Shaheed

Translations pending.

The Afghan govement on Thursday said it has stepped up efforts to provide a budget and outline for security measures for parliamentary and district council elections.

Govement also urged lawmakers to take steps to approve the president's legislative decree on electoral reforms in order to pave the way for the elections next fall.

"Govement is determined to conduct parliamentary and district council elections; the president's legislative decree is now on the table of the representatives of the people (Wolesi Jirga). We hope the lawmakers approve the decree in the near future," deputy presidential spokesman Shahussain Mutazawi said.

When asked about the election budget and security, Mutazawi said that special teams were tasked to work on the financial issues and security of the elections and govement is committed to using all it can to conduct the elections.

Meanwhile, election observer institutions have hit back at govement's election schedule and at govement for not delivering on its promises it made to the people on election reforms, saying that it is would be quite difficult to conduct the poll in the fall due to limited time.

"We hope that parliament will not repeat the past experience and that it issues its verdict on the legislative decree soon. If parliament once again rejects the decree, this is not less than an act of oppression against the people," Yousuf Rashid, head of The Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) told TOLOnews.

This comes nearly two months after the govement referred the legislative decree to parliament for a second time to seek its approval from lawmakers. However the decree so far has not been approved by parliament, something which has elicited strong reactions from election monitoring groups who believe the delay will harm election reforms and damage the democratic process in the country.

In addition, Mohammad Naeem Ayoubzada, head of the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA), has said that considering the limited time till fall, one should not hope for process-oriented elections.

"I think holding process-oriented elections will not be possible. But there is the possibility for holding an election of convenience in the shape of the parliament of national unity and districts of national unity. But one thing is clear that this would be the last election in Afghanistan which would not have legitimacy," he said.

The 2014 presidential elections hit a deadlock when then rival frontrunner and present CEO Abdullah Abdullah accused the Independent Election Commission (IEC) of fabricating results and rigging the polls.

After months of impasse, finally the US Secretary of State John Kerry brokered a political agreement between President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah to establish the national unity govement. After the formation of the national unity govement, the two rivals pledged to undertake fundamental reforms in Afghanistan's election system to avoid such crisis in the future.

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