[Tolo News] The protracted dispute over this year's presidential election has caused grave concern among Afghans and the international community alike. With no end in sight, Afghan civil society activists and residents of Kabul on Friday blamed the election commissions for their failure to avoid, or resolve, the election crisis.Presidential Abdullah Abdullah
... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun...
has remained isolated from the election process that the commissions have pushed forward with despite a cloud of fraud allegations hanging overhead. Without his observers present for vote counting and fraud investigations, many have expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
s about the legitimacy of the process. For others, the greatest concern are the seething tensions between supporters of Abdullah and supporters of the rival camp of Ashraf Ghani-Ahmadzai.
For the entire Afghan economy, however, the election dispute has taken its toll. Already there have been reports of slowed investment and business activity in light of the uncertainty surrounding this year's process.
Gregory Minjack, a Senior Advisor to Democracy International, spoke on Friday about the election commissions, and what needed to be done to ensure better elections in the future. He refrained from disparaging the commissions, but made it clear that he thinks change is needed if they are to be expected to execute their duties properly.
"They need to be reformed [...] I believe as an observer that they have come a long way, but there is still a lot to be done, especially on process, on increasing capacity, meaning, the IEC and ECC can do the job but the job is bigger than the IEC and ECC infrastructure; they need more people and they need longer tenure to train up to deal with the tasks that are asked of them," Minjack said on Friday.
Other civil society groups were less forgiving, and suggested the selection process for officials at the Independent Election Commission (IEC) was fundamentally flawed, leading to under-qualified and politically affiliated people be chosen.