Election results finalised

The results of September’s landmark legislative elections in Afghanistan have been finalised, the UN-government Joint Electoral Management Board (JEMB) announced on Saturday in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The results were initially scheduled to be released in October, but have been repeatedly delayed by inquiries into widespread electoral fraud across the country. “With the certification of final results for [the southern province of] Kandahar and the country-wide Kuchi [nomad] constituency, we have now completed certification of all final results for both the Wolesi Jirga [lower house of parliament] and the provincial council elections,” Bissmillah Bissmil, chairman of the JEMB, explained in Kabul. “Today marks an important milestone in Afghanistan’s transition to a stable and strong democracy,” Bissmil noted. Meanwhile, the newly elected provincial councils met on Saturday across Afghanistan to elect representatives to the Meshrano Jirga, or upper house of parliament. The 102- member assembly will consist of two representatives from each council, one of whom will be a transitional member until district council elections can be held. A further 34 presidential appointments will complete the Meshrano Jirga. “Now, provincial councils in 32 provinces of the country have elected their representatives for the Meshrano Jirga,” Sultan Ahmad Baheen, JEMB spokesman, told IRIN on Sunday. Two more provinces have yet to vote for the upper house. The polls - which cost US $159 million to stage - have been hailed as a key step towards a representative government in Afghanistan after a quarter of a century of war that left more than a million people dead. But there has been widespread concern that powerful warlords and those accused of widespread human rights abuses have been elected. “I am wondering about the past history of many of the winning candidates, who had played major roles in factional, ethnic and regional conflicts, I fear they will put their own interests before national interests, as they always have done, ” 19-year- old, Latfullah lutfi, a student of law at Kabul University said, reflecting the way many Afghans think about the electoral process. Afghanistan’s new parliament is expected to convene in the third week of December, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Karim Rahimi, told reporters last week. Ballots cast in up to three percent of polling stations were excluded from the vote count because of fraud allegations including ballot stuffing, the JEMB has noted. Of the country's 12.5 million registered voters, some 6.8 million Afghans took part in the polls to elect a national legislature and 34 provincial councils for a five-year term. Almost 5,800 candidates contested the poll, including over 2,700 for the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga and more than 3,000 for 420 seats in the provincial councils. Afghanistan’s last parliamentary elections were held in 1969, before a coup in 1973 and the 1979-89 occupation by the Soviet Union.