Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told delegates attending an International Contact Group meeting at the Presidential Palace early Thursday that the task of holding parliamentary elections was a serious challenge for the National Unity Government (NUG) and that government needed time in which to bring about electoral reforms.
The cornerstone to Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah's NUG agreement was the condition of fundamental reforms in the electoral system.
However, Ghani said: "This is a must. We have a consensus on it. We can be fairly certain the 2019 presidential elections would meet all the critical requirements on transparency and accountability," he said.
Parliamentary elections are a very difficult challenge he added – putting it down to "legacy. We don't have electoral roles. Despite your generous expenditure of $1 billion USD (over the past 13 years) it is not resulting in a sustainable solution", he told the gathered delegates.
But civil society institutions have raised their concerns over the delay in starting the electoral reform special commission and said that holding of parliamentary elections before electoral reforms are tackled will be a difficult and challenging task.
"Government is less interested in reforms and a conflicting approach to reform in this sector has caused the international community to become less interested in aiding this process. We believe that in the current situation and without electoral reforms parliamentary elections are impossible," said Naeem Ayoubzada, Chairman of the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA).
"If the National Unity Government implements its commitments for bringing electoral reforms I believe that the international community will resume its assistance to the process and all troubles will be resolved," Ayoubzada added.
Ghani ordered the establishment of the electoral reform special commission before his visit to the United States earlier this year but the CEO's office has opposed Ghani's appointment of Shukria Barakzai as the head. As a result, the commission has not formerly started working. Reports suggest the president and the CEO are still unable to agree over certain issues pertaining to this commission.
The International Contact Group meets periodically and is made up of representatives from a number of countries. The gathering aims to discuss all major developments with respect to Afghanistan including security, political and economic transitions in Afghanistan; electoral reforms; reconciliation process; performance of Afghan government on governance etc.
Mir Abed Joyenda
Source: http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/19634-parliamentary-a-serious-cha...