KABUL - While discussing the government's plan to for an Electoral Reform Commission (ERC), the deputy head of the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC), Abdul Rahman Hotaki, on Friday called the plan irrational and asserted that the reform body would not have the authority to dismiss IEC commissioners.
Mr. Hotaki asserted that IEC commissioners will complete their six years terms unless sufficient evidence proving His wrongdoing is brought against them. His comments echo those voiced in past weeks by those who have questioned the merits of pursuing electoral reforms in an election year, with just a few months remaining before parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place.
"The agreement was made between the two political forces before they gained power," Mr. Hotaki said, referring to the accord between President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah that promised electoral reform as a condition of forming the national unity government. "Therefore, the agreement is impractical [...] the formation of commissions over other national commissions that were formed within the framework of law has no legitimacy," he added
Pressure has mounted on the national unity government since the new year to pursue electoral reform before the upcoming parliamentary elections. Demands for reform are grounded in the commitments made in the agreement that brought Ghani and Abdullah together in the wake of the presidential election, yet that agreement itself was motivated by the controversy that emerged around allegations as well as evidence of sweeping fraud conducted by election officials. Earlier this week, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) reported that there would be investigations into 15,000 temporary employees and 20 permanent employees of the IEC.
Nevertheless, Hotaki seemed to scoff at the possibility that crimes were committed by members of the IEC. "When there is no crime and you insist on bringing changes, what logic are you going to present?" he asked TOLOnews on Friday. "This means you are violating the law," he added.
On the other hand, IEC Commissioner Sareer Ahmad Barmak, in a recent interview with TOLONews, contended that holding parliamentary elections this year under the supervision of the current IEC leadership would be catastrophic. "When the organizer shows deficiency in the election process or the election slips into crisis, then the issue remains unresolved, and, naturally, your next move is a move toward the same crisis, our perspective of reform is in general the same thing," Mr. Barmak said.
Just a few weeks ago, the European Union's (EU) top representative in Afghanistan also warned against holding the elections without enacting reform within the IEC. The EU stressed that corruption and incompetence among election officials it was led to the 2014 presidential election crisis. (Tolonews)