Election Procedures Baffle Voters

As Afghanistan’s first democratic parliamentary elections approaches, the push is on to educate the electorate both in the mechanics of the voting process and in how democracy works.

But given the convoluted process that the country has chosen for its legislative ballot, the job is proving a challenging one.

The Joint Electoral Management Body, JEMB, has begun the education campaign using a network of 1,600 advisers who will reach potential voters through schools, universities, mosques and other public places.

But political parties and parliamentary candidates say the commission’s efforts so far have been too little, too late.

Abdul Rahman Nesar, a high-ranking official in the National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan, says that the commission is taking the same approach it used for last year’s presidential campaign.

“During the presidential elections people could easily choose among the 18 candidates,” he told IWPR. “But in the parliamentary and provincial council elections there will be a lot of nominees. People need a deeper understanding of the process.”

The election is complicated by any standard. On September 18, Afghanistan’s voters will choose 249 parliamentary deputies from the more than 3,000 candidates. In some provinces, up to 400 people will be competing for 20 or 30 seats in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house.

In addition to this, voters will be electing provincial councils. More than 3,000 candidates will compete for 420 seats in these assemblies, with the numbers based on proportional representation. The councils will in turn choose one-third of the candidates for the national parliament’s upper house, the Meshrano Jirga.

With less than three months remaining before the ballot, a major information campaign is needed to familiarise the public with the system. But so far, say observers, there has been too little effort to get the message out.

“I live in Kabul, but I still haven’t heard anything about the general process, so I am sure that the people who live in provinces or remote areas do not know anything about the elections,” politician Nesar told IWPR. “If the people are not given enough information, I think a large number of them will not participate and a lot of votes will be lost.”

Soraya Parlika, the head of the Women’s Union and a parliamentary candidate, agrees. “The parliamentary election system is much more complicated than the presidential election,” she said.

And the problem is not limited to the voters, says Parlika.

“There are some candidates who have heard that deputies in parliament will be given a car and will be paid salaries in dollars, so they have nominated themselves for seats. But they don’t even know what a parliament is,” she said. “It is not just the voters who need to be trained. Candidates also need to understand the purpose of a legislature.”

According to Parlika, many of JEMB’s workers do not have a thorough enough knowledge of the system to be able to communicate it to the electorate.

In addition, she complained, the JEMB’s decision to assign visual symbols to candidates will make it even harder for voters.

“My own symbol is a lamp. But there may be another candidate whose symbol is two lamps. How are the voters going to remember who is who?” she said.

JEMB spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen defends his organisation’s activities, saying that the agency is using the media as well as its network of agents across the country to promote a better understanding of the parliamentary system.

“I am sure that people already know how to vote to some extent, and we will not have any problems in that regard,” Baheen told IWPR.

So far, however, ordinary voters in Kabul do not seem to have been engaged in the process.

Mohammad Aslam, 22, says he only knows elections are being held, but he still doesn’t know why, or how it will work.

“I don’t know what the Wolesi Jirga, the Meshrano Jirga and the provincial councils are, or how people are supposed to vote for them,” he said. “I have heard these names, that’s all.”

Aslam added that the information that does appear on television is too brief and does not convey enough.

Mohammad Ismael, 50, who runs a shop in the capital, said, “I don’t have any information about the elections and no one has given me any yet.”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.