"Premature" elections could lead to instability - report

As Afghanistan begins to register voters early next month for next year's presidential elections, a local think-tank released a statement over the weekend arguing that holding elections next year was risky and could further destabilise the country as the situation on the ground was unfavourable for free and fair elections. "The biggest risk is that holding elections prematurely could do more to promote instability and conflict rather than lasting peace," the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) said in a report entitled "Afghan Elections: the Great Gamble". AREU warned that at present, approximately one-third of the country, especially in the southern and eastern Pashtun belt, would be difficult or impossible to access by voter-registration and election teams due to security concerns. AREU's briefing paper challenges Afghans and the international community working in Afghanistan to take a step back from the Bonn Agreement time frame and consider whether elections can feasibly go ahead or that they should be postponed. "It will be a cruel irony for Afghans if their first experience of voting is being forced to vote for those who have been responsible for so much of the misery of the last two decades. And how ironic if elections are held that sacrifice the right to vote of Afghan women to suit the UN's desire to fulfil the Bonn Agreement and the Bush administration's desire to have a foreign policy win," Andrew Wilder, the director of AREU said. According to the UN, there are about 10.5 million eligible voters in Afghanistan who need to be registered in three phases through and a joint UN-Afghan government initiative. "The process [voter registration] is still subject to severe security evaluation and depending on threat assessments. We are in close liaison with both the coalition and ISAF on this," Catarina Fabiansson, a public information officer from UNAMA's [UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan] electoral component, told IRIN. She added that registration would start from eight provincial capitals and then gradually be extended to towns and villages so that by the end of voter registration all eligible voters - men and women - would have had the opportunity to access a registration site within a reasonable distance from their home. The Afghan authorities agree that security is the most serious challenge to the June elections, but they are optimistic that conditions on the ground will improve sufficiently over the period remaining up to then to allow free and fair elections to be held. "Of course it is really challenging and seems difficult, but let's see and be optimistic to the developments which may happen prior to the elections," Mohammad Arif, the director of the policy and management unit of the office of the president, told IRIN. Arif said the transitional government was strongly committed to the poll being held in June, in accordance with the Bonn time frame, "But if security remains as it is now, it will be difficult and quite risky to hold elections," he cautioned. Shukrya Dawi Barekzai, a member of Afghan Constitutional Commission, told IRIN that holding the elections was vital despite existing risks, as the country needed an elected government with wider authority and new mandate. "If we are going towards a democratic and legal government, we have to make some sacrifices and take some risks, and we should not call everything premature or overdue," Barekzai said, noting that the people of Afghanistan were fed up with alliance-based governments, and desperately wanted a duly elected body to govern them. "Who can guarantee it will be more secure and favourable for elections if June is delayed to another dateline? If a government is elected, for sure it will make a difference," Barekzai, who is also the editor of Kabul's leading women's publication, said. AREU's report underlined some benefits which would accrue if the elections were held within the time frame laid down under the Bonn Agreement, but also warned that the risks in failing to hold them. It said that delaying elections could have a destabilising effect in that by violating one provision of the Bonn Agreement, the legitimacy of its other provisions could be undermined, thereby potentially prompting stakeholders to pull out. "Holding elections will keep donors engaged and invested in Afghanistan's future," the report concluded.