The Results of Afghanistan’s 2018 Parliamentary Elections: A new, but incomplete Wolesi Jirga

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The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has, at long last, almost seven months after the ballot was held, finalised the results of the 2018 parliamentary elections. The parliament itself is almost four years overdue – the elections should have been held in 2015. Even now, Afghanistan does not have a completely newly-elected Wolesi Jirga as Ghazni’s elections have yet to take place; they are only planned for 28 September 2019 (together with the presidential and provincial council elections). In this piece, AAN researcher Ali Yawar Adili looks at why it took so long to finalise the parliamentary elections and concludes that the inefficiencies, lack of clarity and failure to adhere to legal procedures – by government and commissions – is not encouraging for the upcoming presidential ballot. (A list of Afghanistan’s new MPs can be read in an annex to this piece.)

Announcement of final results

Late in the evening on 14 May 2019, the IEC finally published the results of the Kabul vote, thereby concluding the 2018 parliamentary elections, seven months after they were held on 20 and 21 October. (1) The following day, at the presidential palace, President Ashraf Ghani administered the swearing-in of the new MPs from Kabul and Paktia provinces (other MPs whose results were announced earlier had already been sworn in). Ghani called (see the video here) the seven-month-long election “a catastrophe.” It was, he said, was the result of the inefficacy of the former election commissions (the IEC and the Electoral Complaints Commissions, the EEC): “In the history of democratic systems, it is unprecedented that the results of an election should take seven months. I do not speak about other aspects of it because they are judicial, but there should be no doubt that the former commission, both commissions, were inefficient. There is a consensus in the country about it.”

The parliamentary elections were planned for 20 October 2018. By then, the election in Ghazni province had already been cancelled, so on the day itself, voters in only 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces went to the polls, along with those voting for the nation’s ten Kuchi representatives and one Sikh and Hindu representative. Even then, not all of the polling centres opened. 401 polling centres failed to open, said former IEC chairman Gula Jan Badi Sayyad, because of technical problems or security threats. AAN described the “technical shambles” and “triumph of administrative chaos”. The IEC had to extend the elections into a second day, opening those polling centres that had not opened on 20 October the following day (AAN’s reporting here).

In addition, the people of Kandahar went to cast their votes a week later, on 27 October 2018 (see AAN’s reporting here and here), a delay triggered by the killing of Kandahar’s Chief of Police General Abdul Razeq and head of NDS General Abdul Momin Hussainkhel two days before the elections had been due (AAN reporting here).

The new Wolesi Jirga is not fully complete, as Ghazni’s elections have yet to be held, something which even state officials sometimes overlook. One of the IEC deputy spokespeople speaking to Arman FM Safayi Shahr-e Programme on 15 May about the Kabul election results told the radio listeners that the IEC had “ended the parliamentary elections.” One of the presenters quipped, “Did you exclude Ghazni from the list?” The IEC had dropped the Wolesi Jirga elections in Ghazni after the government failed to resolve competing demands about the size of the constituency (AAN’s reporting here and here). Those elections are now scheduled for 28 September together with the presidential and provincial council elections. However, the constituency dispute remains unresolved and may yet resurface once the IEC begins voter registration there. According to article 104 of the electoral law, if elections are postponed or suspended, members of the elected bodies (for instance the Wolesi Jirga) should continue to serve in their positions until the holding of a new election and announcement of its results. So far, according to an MP from Ghazni, ten out of the 11 MPs remain in parliament: the eleventh, Chaman Shah Etemadi, was appointed the new head of the ECC secretariat.

Hasty inauguration of a new, incomplete parliament almost four years late

According to article 83 of the constitution, the Wolesi Jirga’s term ended on 1 Sartan 1394 (22 June 2015) and a new parliament had to have been inaugurated after elections which should have been held 30 to 60 days before that. (2) However, when the National Unity Government (NUG) was formed in the wake of the disputed 2014 presidential elections, it committed to carrying out fundamental electoral reform. More than three years were spent working on reforms, but little was achieved. This period, as AAN reported (see section two of AAN’s dossier here), was characterised by the NUG leaders’ wrangling over the establishment of the Special Electoral Reform Commission (SERC) (which had been envisaged in the NUG’s 2014 political deal); the SERC’s discussions and recommendations for electoral reform; parliament’s rejection of presidential legislative decrees that had adopted some of the SERC’s recommendations, and, finally; changes to the electoral law which were endorsed by legislative decree and the appointment of new electoral commissioners for the IEC and the ECC.

All this meant that the new parliament was inaugurated on 26 April 2019, almost four years after the constitutional end of the previous parliament’s term. (3) Moreover, it was inaugurated in spite of the fact that the final results from Kabul and Paktia had not yet been announced. A total of 38 seats (33 for Kabul and 5 for Paktia) were empty on the day of the inauguration. The IEC announced the final results of the Wolesi Jirga elections for Paktia province two days later and Kabul more than two weeks after that.

Similarly, on the day of the inauguration, the IEC hastily released the final results for three other outstanding provinces (Maidan Wardak, Kunduz and Baghlan) as well as those for the Kuchi constituency (five seats for Maidan Wardak, nine for Kunduz, eight for Baghlan and ten for the Kuchis). It is unclear whether or not the new MPs from these constituencies were able to participate in the inauguration at such short notice (unless they had been informed before the release of the results that they would be winners and were therefore ready to participate in the inauguration). MP Halima Askari from Maidan Wardak told AAN on 15 May that the five MPs from her province had been able to attend the inauguration, but had not yet received their election credentials from the IEC certifying they had been elected.

Two days before the inauguration of the parliament, on 24 April 2019, the IEC granted election credentials to 89 MPs from ten provinces (Kandahar, Helmand, Ghor, Badghis, Logar, Nangrahar, Herat, Takhar, Paktika and Balkh as well as the Hindu and Sikh constituency). IEC head Hawa Alam Nuristani said that the final results for these ten provinces and communities had been released by the new leadership of the IEC. A few months earlier, on 9 February, the former IEC granted credentials to 80 successful candidates from 18 provinces: Bamyan, Daikundi, Jawzjan, Uruzgan, Laghman, Kapisa, Zabul, Panjshir, Parwan, Khost, Samangan, Badakhshan, Faryab, Sar-e Pul, Farah, Nimruz, Kunar and Nuristan (the former IEC had, in fact, finalised the results of only these 18 provinces before its members were all sacked).

Article 88 of the electoral law says that election credentials should be awarded to the members of the Wolesi Jirga following the announcement of the final election results. (4) Yet, in total, only 169 new MPs out of a total of 250 had been fully approved well in advance of the inauguration; 70 other MPs had either not had their results, or not completed the procedure yet (ie, had not yet received their election certificates). Also, ten former MPs from Ghazni participated in the inauguration. (5)

However, President Ghani did not mention the hastiness of the event, saying only that the final results of the parliamentary elections for Kabul had not yet been announced: “I am sorry that the Kabul MPs are not in their seats. I wish the Kabul MPs were present [here] to listen to our programmes for Kabul city and Kabul province.”. Instead, President Ghani claimed that: “We inaugurated the assembly on the auspicious day of Friday to show that the president and the leadership of the National Unity Government cannot tolerate [even] one moment of procrastination in the inauguration of the National Assembly.” However, the rush to inaugurate the new parliament appeared to have been motivated rather by the need for elected MPs to attend the consultative peace Loya Jirga, which was held from 29 April to 3 May (see AAN’s reporting here and here).

Atta Muhammad Dehqanpur, an MP from Ghor province, had been elected as the interim speaker to preside over the inauguration on 26 April. This was in accordance with article four of the Wolesi Jirga Rules of Procedures which says that the oldest member should be appointed as pro tem speaker and the two youngest members should be appointed as pro tem deputy speaker and secretary. (6). Their duty is also to supervise the election of a permanent speaker, who will then supervise the election of the rest of the administrative boards.

The Wolesi Jirga had planned to hold its first plenary session on 11 May following the inauguration and to then elect its administrative board.‌ However, some of the Kabul candidates and their supporters gathered in front of the parliament and blocked the MPs’ entry as they did not want the elections for the administrative board to be held in their absence (which makes sense given that Kabul is the largest constituency with 33 seats) (See a media report here). According to article 87 of the constitution, the Wolesi Jirga should elect one member as the speaker for five years, and two members as the first and second deputy speakers and two members as the secretary and deputy secretary for one year.  (7)

On 16 May, the Wolesi Jirga conducted voting for the speaker. It was inconclusive. There were four candidates: Mir Rahman Rahmani (Parwan) who was the head of the economy commission in previous parliament (75 votes), Kamal Naser Osuli (Khost) who was previously head of the education/higher education commission (69 votes), Mirwais Yasini (Nangahar) (59 votes) and Omar Nasir Mujaddedi (Herat) (seven votes). The runoff will now be held between Rahmani and Osuli, according to Ghulam Hussain Naseri (Maidan Wardak) on Saturday, 18 May (media report here).

The second round might be hard fought and drawn-out. The previous Wolesi Jirga elected its speaker only one month and two days after its inauguration, after its members sat through sixteen sessions, with eighteen candidates competing in four rounds of balloting. Then, MPs used blank votes to prevent the election of any speaker. (AAN’s reporting here).

Change of commissioners

The 2018 parliamentary elections were administered by two different sets of commissions. On 22 November 2016, the 12 new electoral commissioners (seven for the IEC and five for the ECC) were sworn in at the presidential palace for a period of five and three years (see AAN’s reporting here). These commissions prepared for and held the parliamentary elections. The commissioners were in the middle of finalising the results and had announced them for 18 provinces when they were replaced by the new set of commissioners. This was done after growing calls by election observers and political parties for them to be dismissed and replaced. They were accused of misconduct and mismanagement and of being unfit to manage the upcoming presidential elections (AAN reporting here).

Interestingly, some of the Kabul candidates were among the new commissioners who adjudicated or announced the final results. However, they had not won seats, according to the preliminary results, so their adjudication of the results made no difference in their favour.

Controversy around the Kabul elections

The Kabul vote was questioned from the very beginning not only by candidates but also by IEC officials themselves. They included on 20 November, the acting head of the IEC office for Kabul, Zahir Akbari, who resigned from his post in protest at “widespread fraud and corruption allegations.” He said the elections in Kabul had been designed and conducted by a corrupt circle led by the head of the IEC secretariat Akbari Zamanzai. He had been called in to take over from Awal ul-Rahman Rudwal as head of the IEC’s Kabul office after he, Zamanzai and various other officials had been accused of violating the law. On 2 December, the IEC suspended its acting head of field operations for Kabul province, Obaidullah Niazi, for alleged bribe-taking. Niazi had only taken up the job very recently following the replacement of the entire provincial IEC office for Kabul. (AAN reporting here).

On 6 December, the ECC nullified all results for Kabul province. (8) It cited mismanagement, violations of the electoral law, dereliction of duty by the IEC and a lack of transparency as the main reasons. The IEC immediately condemned the ECC’s step as “hasty, unrealistic and political[ly motivated]” and as “disregard and disrespect of the efforts and the sacrifices on the day of elections.” The ECC subsequently withdrew its decision. Both IEC and ECC commissioners were fired by President Ghani before they could resolve the dispute over the Kabul vote. After the new commissioners took over, the ECC held consultation meetings with the political parties and civil society organisations on the Kabul vote (this is because the ECC had not adjudicated the complaints when they were fired).

The new ECC then annulled the previous recount and audits conducted by the previous commissioners and conducted a new recount and an audit based on the result sheets of the election days. (9) Chaman Shah Etemadi, the head of the ECC, had told the media that the earlier audit and recount not only had not resulted in the transparency of the results but also caused more “damage.” He said that if the ECC could be provided with 50 per cent of the result sheets from the first and second day of elections, the vote would be legitimised; otherwise, it might decide to nullify the votes entirely.

Muhammad Qasem Elyasi, the secretary and spokesman for the ECC who was himself a candidate from Kabul, told Etilaat Roz on 12 May that 12 per cent of the Kabul votes had been missing and that the most likely option was that the final results for Kabul would be announced based on 88 per cent of the votes. The ECC told media on 7 May that it had sent its decisions to the IEC. It then took the IEC a week to finally publish the results on 14 May.

The new commissioners confirmed most of the candidates who had been named as winners in the preliminary results and replaced four: Ajmal Gulab, Ahmad Zia Azemi Shinuzada, Muhammad Farhad Sediqi and Salima Nikbin were replaced by Abdul Razaq Istalefi, Erfanullah Erfan, Muhammad Naim Wardak and Parwin Durani. Salima Nikbin and Ajmal Gulab are unhappy with the final results: Nikbin alleged to the media that she had been on the list after the ECC’s adjudication, but had been excluded nonetheless because she lacks political support; Gulab claimed his name had been removed at the behest of the Palace.

IEC and ECC officials acknowledged there were problems with the Kabul vote. The ECC finally approved the results based on 88 per cent of the result sheets from the election days (Etilaat Roz reported) on 16 May that it had obtained documents showing that only 70 of the result sheets had been available and the remaining 30 had been missing). A single vote can matter in elections, so the absence of 12 (or 30) per cent of them is questionable.

Conclusion: Some lessons from the 2018 parliamentary elections

The inefficiency of the former commissioners was cited as the main reason for the problems with the 2018 parliamentary elections. However, in reality, there were many other problems in the parliamentary elections.

• First, the rules of the game were never clear well in advance of the elections. For instance, only a month before the elections, the IEC was pressured by political parties and the government to make a last-minute compromise and use biometric voter verification on election day (see AAN’s background of the issue here). As a result, as the author wrote at the time, the biometric machines, intended to serve as a panacea for all election ills, turned into a headache during the ballot. Those with a say in how the elections were going to be delivered – the government, political parties and the IEC – should have agreed on the rules well in advance.
• Second, there was a clear disregard on the part of both the government and the IEC for legal procedure. For instance, according to the electoral law, the postponement of the district council elections and the Wolesi Jirga elections in Ghazni had to be approved by a special committee. But the government never convened this committee. The disregard for legal procedure obscured the rules of the game for everyone involved because it showed that anything could be dropped or added at any time without the least attention to the rules spelt out by law. This, in turn, undermined the credibility of the election management bodies as well as the election itself (see AAN’s reporting here).
• Third was the inefficiency and shortcomings of the relevant institutions. For instance, the push for biometric voter verification was stimulated by concerns on the part of the political parties that the manual voter registration was flawed, as fake tazkeras had been used and thus the voter lists would be fraudulent and unreliable. The Afghanistan Central Civil Registration Authority (ACCRA) was responsible for issuing tazkeras under the Memorandum of Understanding it had signed with the IEC. It was the responsibility of ACCRA to ensure fake tazkeras were not distributed and if they were distributed, that they would be detected, but it was unclear whether it had a reliable database for the IEC to be able to cross-check voter registration data.

Given that the parliamentary elections were held three years late, voters could have expected a far better election. As it is, taking seven months to finalise the results of this grossly-delayed election has only added weight to the conclusion that electoral reform has failed. With the politically even more important presidential election looming, the prospect of a timely and fair ballot for Afghanistan’s next leader in the autumn has been made slimmer.

Edited by Sari Kouvo and Kate Clark

(1) Radio Television of Afghanistan (RTA) published (see here) the list of the winners from Kabul before it was published by the IEC. Sources from the IEC told AAN that they had a printout of the results, which they had to have a final look at to make sure it was accurate. It took them almost two hours to do this, during which time it was leaked (whereupon the RTA obtained a copy).

(2) Article 83 of the constitution says:

Members of the House of People shall be elected by the people through free, general, secret, and direct balloting.

The work period of the House of People shall terminate, after the disclosure of the results of the elections, on the 1st of Saratan of the 5th year and the new Parliament shall commence work.

The elections for members of the House of People shall be held 30 to 60 days prior to the expiration of the term of the House of People.

The number of the members of the House of People shall be proportionate to the population of each constituency, not exceeding the maximum of 250 individuals.

Electoral constituencies, as well as other related issues, shall be determined by the elections law.

The elections law shall adopt measures to attain, through the electorate system, general and fair representation for all the people of the country, and proportionate to the population of every province, on average, at least two females shall be the elected members of the House of People from each province.

(3) Parliament’s winter recess ended on 15 Hut 1397 (6 March 2019), but the president refused to inaugurate it with the old members. According to article 42 of the rules of procedures, the Wolesi Jirga has a 45 day-long summer recess from 1 Asad to 15 Sunbula and a 45 day-long winter recess from 1 Dalw to 15 Hut (21 January to 6 March 2019).

(4) An MP from Ghazni, in conversation with AAN, claimed that the State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Faruq Wardak, and Second Deputy Chief Executive Engineer Muhammad Khan who hails from Ghazni and some other Hezb-e Islami affiliates mainly from Ghazni did not want Ghazni MPs to attend the inauguration of the National Assembly. According to the MP, Wardak and others had argued that, based on the constitution, the new parliament should be inaugurated with the new MPs and Ghazni MPs were not new. The MP claimed that they had received an indication that Wardak and others had convinced the president of this as well.

The Ghazni MP said this contravened article 104 of the electoral law, which states that when an election is not held in a constituency, the former MPs can continue to work until the election is held. He contacted Wardak to check whether or not this was true and he confirmed it, the MP said. The MP went on to say that he then met Chief Executive Abdullah to raise the issue with him and, in his presence, Abdullah spoke with Wardak on the phone and promised to talk to the president, too.

The MP said that minister Wardak had then asked the Supreme Court, the Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution, the IEC and the ECC verbally and they had all said that the Ghazni MPs should remain in the office until new MPs were elected, and they should be invited to the inauguration.

(5) Article 88 of the electoral law says:

The Commission is obliged that after the announcement of the final election results, it shall issue an award a Certificate of Election to the President, Members of Wolesi Jirga, elected members of Meshrano Jirga members of the Provincial Councils, members of the District Councils, members of the Village Councils, mayors and the members of the Municipality Councils.

(6) Article 87 of the constitution:

Each of the two houses of the National Assembly, at the commencement of their work period, shall elect one member as president for the term of the legislature, and two members as first and second deputies and two members as secretary and assistant secretary for a period of one year.

These individuals shall form the administrative teams of the House of People as well as House of Elders. Duties of the administrative teams shall be determined by the Regulations on Internal Duties of each house.

(7) Article four of the Wolesi Jirga Rules and Procedures says:

• At the first sitting of the Jirga, the oldest Member, who is not a candidate for the position of Speaker, shall be appointed as Pro Tem Speaker.
• The oldest Member shall present his or her identity card to the Secretary-General in order to be appointed Pro Tem Speaker. The national identity card (Tazkara) shall determine the age of the Member.
• If there are two or more Members of exactly the same age, the Pro Tem Speaker shall be appointed by lottery.
• The two youngest Members of the Jirga, who are not candidates themselves, shall be appointed as Deputy and Secretary to the Pro Tem Speaker.
• The method of election of the Secretary and Deputy to the Pro Tem Speaker of the Jirga shall be in accordance with clauses 3 and 4 of this article.

(8) It called for the dismissal of five current and former IEC officials named (head and deputy of the IEC secretariat, Ahmad Shah Zamanzai, and Abdul Aziz Samim, respectively, and the head of IT, Sayyed Ibrahim Sadat, head of field operations, Zmarai Qalamyar, and former head of Kabul IEC, Awal ul-Rahman Rudwal) for “mismanagement, violation of laws, regulations and procedures of the electoral commissions and failure to exercise legal authorities and obligations on timely basis which led to widespread electoral violations and crimes.” (AAN reporting here.)

(9) On 15 April 2019, the ECC held a consultative meeting with election observer groups about the Kabul elections. According to its report, the representatives of the election observers stressed that the most widespread election fraud had been committed during the recount of the Kabul votes and this needed serious attention. They believed that reviewing the result sheets from election day and addressing the objections and complaints from the Kabul elections would yield satisfactory results.

On 21 April, the ECC consulted representatives of political parties. According to its report, the review of election day result sheets and the recount phase of Kabul votes, identifying ghost votes and nullifying Kabul votes were discussed by the political party representatives. (10) On 25 April 2019, the ECC made the following decisions: 1) all the documents related to the appeal cases for Kabul province should be quarantined and sealed by the ECC members in the ECC headquarters; 2) all the reviews, audits and recounts conducted (by the outgoing IEC and ECC) were to be annulled; 3) all the result sheets from the first and second day (20 and 21 October 2018) of the elections in the specified polling centres and stations, having fulfilled the necessary criteria of the election procedures and regulations were to be considered valid; 4) the IEC is obligated to provide all the documents related to Kabul to the ECC; 5) all the original result sheets from the first and second day (20 and 21 October 2018) of the elections should be quarantined and sealed by the ECC members in the location specified by the IEC, and; 6) all the IEC and ECC staff should cooperate seriously and comprehensively in addressing the Kabul cases.

Annex: Below is the table for the new MPs from 33 provinces plus ten Kuchi MPs and one Hindu and Sikh representative.

1. Kabul: the largest constituency with 33 seats, including nine for women. The results were announced on 14 May, late evening. The first 24 are male and the remaining nine are female.

2. Kapisa: it has four seats, including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 17,952 votes.

3. Parwan: it has six seats, including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 52,988 votes cast.

4. Maidan Wardak: has five seats, including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 26,407 votes.

5. Logar: four seats, including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 4,427 votes.

6. Nangrahar: has 14 seats, including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 86,104 votes.

7. Laghman: four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 11,740 votes.

8. Panjshir: two seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 10,033 votes.

9. Baghlan: eight seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 43,271 votes.

10. Bamyan: four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 35,662 votes.

11. Paktika: has four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 11,094.

12. Paktia: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 12,145 votes.

13. Khost: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 23,086 votes.

14. Kunar: has four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 23,577 votes.

15. Nuristan: has two seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 2,761 votes.

16. Badakhshan: has nine seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 54,450 votes.

17. Takhar: has nine seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 67,724 votes.

18. Kunduz: has 9 seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 16,378 votes.

19. Samangan: has four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 27,681 votes (http://www.iec.org.af/results/en/home/final_leadingcandidates_results/20).

20. Balkh: has 11 seats including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 97,727 votes.

21. Sar-e Pul: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 34,621 votes.

22. Ghor: has six seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 57,361 votes.

23. Daikundi: has four seats including one female seat (two female MPs have been elected from Daikundi this time). The elected candidates represent a total of 46,705 votes.

24. Uruzgan: has three seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 3,367 votes.

25. Zabul: has three seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 3,767 votes.

26. Kandahar: has 11 seats including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 50,797 votes.

27. Jawzjan has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 35,691 votes.

28. Faryab: has nine candidates including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 30,360 votes.

29. Helmand has eight seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 19,792 votes.

30. Badghis: four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 14,572 votes.

31. Herat: has 17 seats including five for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 116,569 votes.

32. Farah: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 8,524 votes.

33. Nimruz: has two seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 12,148 votes.

34. Kuchis: there are ten Kuchi seats, including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 49,033 votes.

35. Sikh: there is one seat reserved for the Hindu and Sikh communities in a country-wide constituency. The elected candidate has a total of 303 votes.

Endnotes:

Revisions:

This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020

Tags:

Election 2018 Members of Parliament parliamentary election

Authors:

Ali Yawar Adili

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