The ongoing and tiring process of elections have shown that Afghanistan needs to evolve to a large extend as far as nourishment of democracy is concerned. The attitude of the presidential runners regarding the ongoing process of audit has really made it very clear that democratic behavior has yet to be achieved. Moreover, the lengthened process has made the people started thinking whether the democratic system is worth striving for. And, this aspect of the situation is really grave and requires proper attention of the concerned authorities; because if the people start losing their hopes and confidence from a democratic system, no one can help the country to continue its journey towards it.
The Independent Election Commission on Friday, Aug 15, said that petty but frequent differences between representatives from the two presidential teams have slowed down the ongoing vote audit.
IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told a news conference in Kabul that 485 ballot boxes were audited yesterday by as many as 260 teams working in two shifts. On Wednesday, only 240 teams had scrutinised more than 700 boxes. The commission could not expedite its job as long as the mismatch of perceptions persisted. He also requested the representatives to eschew stoking unnecessary controversies and mentioned that the panel would be able to complete the audit soon if the process was allowed to proceed normally.
He also mentioned that so far 8,867 ballot boxes (or 39 percent of the votes cast in the runoff elections), excluding yesterday’s recount, had been reassessed. National and international observers as well as candidate representatives numbering 1,150 were present. He also revealed that the special audit of 6,000 suspect ballot boxes, which had to begin on Friday, had been delayed for a day due to logistical problems.
If the process keeps on getting late, it would be very difficult to announce the final result by the end of this month as well, and President Karzai would have to wait for another month or even two for the final results.
Both the teams and their representatives have to support the process instead of bickering on trivial matters and they need to understand that the speedy process would benefit both Afghan political and economic stability and Afghanistan’s journey towards a better democratic country.