KABUL (Pajhwok): Election oversight institutes say more than 11,000 election observers have been tasked with overseeing the polling process despite serious concerns facing the democratic process.
Eighteen figures were in the list of candidates announced by the IEC in April. But Zalmai Rassoul and Shaida Mohammad Abdali joined Ashraf Ghani’s ticket while Mohammad Hanif Atmar, another candidate suspended his electioneering.
Mohammad Yousuf Rashid, head of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FFEFA), told a press conference here that their organization had tasked 6,000 people with monitoring the election process across the country.
He urged wide participation of people in the election and said that high turnout would give the vote more legitimacy.
He also asked government officials not to interfere in the election and respect transparency and justice in the process.
“The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) if noticed any violations during the election, it should not wait for others to register their complaints but the commission itself should be careful on the regard”, he said.
Without giving details, he said, “Presidential candidates should be careful of their speeches and consequences of what they say. This process should be done peacefully and no one should send savage messages to one another.”  Rashid said candidates should tell their supporters not to rig the election. 
He said insecurity, lack of assurance about right use of biometric devices, lack of female personnel in women’s polling stations, lack of telecom services in seven provinces and some other issues remained a matter of concern.
He asked the organs concerned to pay attention to these issues, claiming that security of polling stations had not been rightly assessed.
Citing an example, he said only around 1,100 people had voted in a polling station during Wolesi Jirga election in Logar province while measures for the same polling station were enough for 13,000 voters for presidential election.
Rashid sought international community’s support for the Afghan election and expressed concern that there were no foreign observers even in the Independent Election Commission (IEC) office in capital Kabul.
Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA) members during a separate press conference in Kabul said that the foundation had tasked 5,200 observers to monitor the election process on the Election Day. It asked people to extensively participate in the poll.
Mohammad Naim Ayubzada, executive director of TEFA, said that they would monitor opening of polling stations, voting process and vote counting online in real-time and would also announce probable results of the election on the same day.
He also said irregularities and organized fraud on the Election Day, not announcing voters’ list before the election, lack of female personnel in women’s polling stations, lack of public awareness for using biometric devices, interference of security officials and governors in favor of candidates, insecurity and some other issues were worrisome.
Without going into details, he said, that information provided regarding closed and open polling stations were not accurate while some governors and security officials had been tasked to work on a special team.
“We will share information about this issue after documenting them”, he said. In response to a question, he said, “For example, we can mention governors and security officials of Daikundi and Paktia provinces.”
Ayubzada asked security forces not to work in favor of a particular presidential candidate.
He said Taliban’s threats and propaganda against the election were also a problem to the poll and asked security forces to be careful in this regard.
Lack of telecom services in some areas also created problems for sharing information and telecom companies should be asked not to turn off their services in the interest of militants on the Election Day, he added.
Taking photos of female voters on the Election Day and shortage of women personnel in women’s polling stations are other problems the election faced, he said, adding that TEFA anticipated women’s turnout on the Election Day would be limited.
“If women do not participate in the election, it would pave the ground for fraud in the process in women’s polling stations,” he said.
Election watchdogs say candidates spent money on their campaigns beyond the permitted amount and two candidates used government resources and some promoted ethnic divisions and made deceitful promises during their election campaigns.
A day earlier, election commissions and security organs announced that they were prepared for holding the September 28 presidential election.
mds/ma