Electoral Reforms Commission deadlock continues

The process of deadlock in brining reforms to the electoral system continues as the leaders of national unity government neglecting the issue, some of electoral observing institutions said.

The institutions are said to believe the controversies between the leaders of government on appointing the head of the commission is still not solved.

President Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah, in the September 2014 agreement, agreed to electoral reforms “to ensure that future elections are credible.”

The details of these reforms, when they should take place and who should design them are, however, proving contentious.

Meanwhile, parliament has been working on relevant laws, while commissioners of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) are fighting off calls for them to be replaced while insisting that, at this point, they are the only ones who should be making changes to improve future elections.

Although everyone is talking about ‘reform’, the wrangling really boils down to a struggle for control of the electoral bodies and, ultimately, the outcome of upcoming elections.

The observing electoral institutions consider the deadlock for reforms of electoral system alarming; adding, currently the civil society institutions are no longer eager to join the commission.

The National Unity Government agreement is quite clear that “to ensure that future elections are fully credible, the electoral system (laws and institutions) requires fundamental changes” and “that the objective is to implement electoral reform before the 2015 parliamentary elections.”

It does not however spell out what these reforms should entail, other than that the president will appoint a special commission who will report to the CEO.

However, President Ghani has his own vision regarding the reforms, saying brining reforms to the electoral bodies is an essential need.

Bringing reform in electoral bodies was one of the main conditions of forming the national unity government. However, the government is still to take vital steps  in this regard in its first seven months term.

The deadlock also raise concerns of the donor countries as the parliamentary election is near.

The issue of what electoral reform should look like, when it should take place, with how much urgency and by whom, is dividing the government.

This is a direct consequence of the different way that the two halves of the national unity government look back on the previous election.

According to the Abdullah camp, their victory was stolen through mass interference by partisan electoral bodies, which is why they insist the commissioners should be replaced, the way they are selected changed and the level of accountability of (or control over) the electoral bodies increased.

The Ghani camp on the other hand insists that fraud was both limited and adequately dealt with through the electoral audit.

There is, as a result, a marked reluctance within the Ghani camp to make substantial changes ahead of the upcoming vote, in particular when it comes to replacing the IEC and IECC commissioners.

Making such changes would look like an admission that the electoral bodies were indeed implicated in a fraud-tainted result, which would in turn weaken the position and legitimacy of the president.

It would also mean the replacement of commissioners that are, and have been, to a large extent on his side, which could leave the field open for the Abdullah camp, and other emerging political networks, to gain influence in the electoral bodies.

Reported by Nasrat Parsa