KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government said Tuesday that it had reached a consensus to hold parliamentary elections this spring over the objections of international organizations and Western governments that fear a repeat of the fraud that tainted this past summer’s presidential vote.
The United Nations, the United States and electionobservation missions, including one representing the European Union, have asked the Afghan government to refrain from holding another vote until it writes a new election law and creates a list of registered voters.
“The special representative to the secretary-general has made clear the need for reform of electoral institutions to prevent some of these difficulties before the next set of elections,” said Aleem Siddique, the spokesman for the U.N. special representative, Kai Eide.
A delegation of U.S. congressmen also pressed for a delay.
“In the aftermath of the presidential elections ... the Karzai administration is faced with a challenge to its credibility. We communicated in very clear terms to both the legislative leaders here in Afghanistan and to President [Hamid] Karzai himself that this delegation believes it is imperative that the government of Afghanistan delay the parliamentary elections,” Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said at the conclusion of the delegation’s two-dayvisit.
Under the current law, the president appoints the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, which runs the elections. That arrangement has led to charges of bias in the institution that oversees the voting.
The lack of voter rolls is another problem. In the past summer’s election, people reportedly bought multiple voter cards on the black market and cast more than one vote in some areas. Elsewhere, outright ballot-box stuffing was reported. It would take months to legislate and put in place changes to avoid those problems, according to election experts.
In the first round of the presidential election held in August, more than a million votes for Karzai were thrownout as possibly fraudulent, forcing him into a runoff with his closest competitor, Abdullah Abdullah. Although Abdullah ultimately withdrew and Karzai was given a second term, a number of Afghans question the president’s legitimacy.
The Afghan government appeared unlikely to bend in its resolve to hold the elections by the date mandated by the constitution, May 22, making it all but impossible for electoral changes to be in place before the voting.
“We seriously emphasize that the election should be on time as required by the constitution,” said Waheed Omar, the spokesman for Karzai, at a news conference.
The Independent Electoral Commission announced that it was sending the namesof seven provincial election chiefs to the Election Complaint Commission and would, if necessary, refer them to the attorney general’s office to be investigated for allegations of fraud, said Daoud Ali Najafi, who runs the Independent Election Commission’s secretariat.
“We are trying our best to take precautionary measures,” he said, adding that the commission might further reduce the number of voting stations in an effort to minimize the chances of fraud.
None of that is sufficient, according to Western diplomats, two of whom said they wanted to see “root-andbranch reforms.” However, they conceded that ultimately it was up to the Afghan government to set an electiondate.
Western countries that back Afghanistan have limited leverage to force changes in the country’s election process beyond refusing to pay for operations needed to hold the voting. The parliamentary elections will cost roughly $120 million, Najafi said.
Meanwhile, Afghan government and foreign military officials sparred Tuesday over reports that 10 civilians died during a military operation - claims that further inflamed public sentiment against the international military presence as thousands more troops prepare to deploy.
Information for this article was contributed by Abdul Waheed Wafa of The New York Times and by Jim Heintz of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 12/30/2009