Defence`s Feeds

Corruption in the Afghan state has blossomed and bloomed in the years since 2001. A report published by UNAMA today on Afghanistan’s fight against corruption highlights how the frequent changes in corruption-related legislation and a mushrooming of anti-graft institutions have done little to stop it; recent reductions in petty corruption – as shown by the latest surveys of citizens’ perceptions – have been minimal. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica here takes stock of the country’s principal anti-corruption institutions, looking at what they do and (often) do not do, and whether corruption is helped or hindered by the multiplicity of bodies.

Corruption eats into the faith of citizens in their state. It undermines what services the state provides – witness low-quality or even ghost schools, the disabled and families of martyrs seeing their pensions are taken by others and the poor-quality construction of roads and infrastructure. It feeds into the nexus between criminality and the state and widens social inequality, between those too poor and powerless to influence the system and those who able to exploit it. Whether corruption manifests as bribe-taking, selling state jobs, stealing money or goods, paying money to ghost pensioners, teachers and soldiers, making crooked contracts or using state institutions or staff to commit a crime with impunity, the number and ways in which corruption has blossomed in the Afghan state since 2001 are many and varied. So, too, are the institutions set up by the state supposedly to combat this corruption. Yet, nothing much ever seems to change.

In this dispatch, the author looks at UNAMA’s overall conclusions in its new report on fighting corruption, before giving a brief history of anti-corruption efforts in the years since 2001. Then, in a bid to clarify the bewildering number of anti-corruption bodies, she details the ten most important ones, looking at how and why they were set up and why they are (largely) failing or (very occasionally) doing well.

What does UNAMA’s report say about corruption in Afghanistan?

The new UNAMA report, “Afghanistan’s Fight against Corruption: Groundwork for Peace and Prosperity” said that “some progress” against corruption has been made. In Transparency International’s global corruption perception index, Afghanistan moved up from 177th (in 2017) to 172nd place (in 2018), out of 180 places. Mainly, this was a result of a slight decrease in corruption in Afghanistan. According to a leading Afghan watch-dog organisation, Integrity Watch Afghanistan, this was reportedly due to citizens paying fewer bribes. (1)

This decrease in corruption was followed by a boost in anti-corruption legislation. According to the UNAMA report, in 2018 and early 2019, legislative changes related to corruption, such as the Anti-Corruption Law, the Whistle Blower Protection Law and the Attorney General’s Law “focused on clarifying the institutional framework of anti-corruption bodies to better align to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).” (2) According to the UNAMA, the Anti-Corruption Law, which entered into force on 5 September 2018 and which foresees the establishment of an independent Anti-Corruption Commission, shows that “the reform efforts have come a long way towards establishing a robust anti-corruption framework and dedicated institutions to implement it.”

The new anti-corruption law was submitted to the Wolesi Jirga on 11 October 2018, about 20 days before the parliamentary elections (see this AAN thematic dossier on the aftermath of the 2018 parliamentary elections). As the new national assembly was only inaugurated on 26 April 2019, the law has not yet been debated. It was, nevertheless, amended by another presidential legislative decree regarding the selection process of the anti-corruption commissioners, on 5 March 2019.

The UNAMA report, however, warns that recurrent changes in legislation, inconsistent implementation of the 2017 Anti-Corruption Strategy and ad hoc interventions to change a course of reform or frequent changes in personnel within key institutions may have had a reverse effect.  

None of this comes as any surprise, as Afghanistan’s post-2001 anti-corruption history is rich with examples of just that – frequent changes in legislation, changes in personnel, inconsistently followed plans and the creation of numerous anti-graft institutions, most of which have had a very short life span, as will be explained in the following section.

Looking back, how did Afghanistan’s fight against corruption begin?

In the years after 2001, corruption came to be recognised as one of the key impediments to Afghanistan’s development and stability; thus, the fight against it eventually gained a high place on the post-2001 state-building agenda (for more background see this 2007 UNODC paper). Within three years, of the fall of the Taleban, Afghanistan had signed the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and promulgated a law against corruption and bribery in 2004. That same year, the first anti-corruption agency, the General Independent Administration for Anti-Corruption (GIAAC) was established. Based on the decree under which it was formed, GIAAC had wide-ranging responsibilities, including to investigate all cases of bribery and corruption. However, its work was politicised, and, according to reports, misused for political gains by its head, Dr Azzizulah Ludin (see here and here). (3) It was, very eventually, dissolved in 2008 after it lost international financial support, following former President Karzai’s decision to replace Dr Ludin with Ezatullah Wasifi, who had been convicted of selling and distributing heroin in the United States (see media coverage here).

2006 saw the first anti-corruption benchmarks being agreed when the Afghan government and its international backers signed the Afghanistan Compact. Since then, they have been a prominent feature in all key agreements between the Afghan government and its international backers. These benchmarks are also used to measure anti-corruption efforts.

By the end of Karzai’s presidency in 2014, four key institutions (4) in the Afghan anti-corruption sector had emerged. Some of these institutions, however, such as the High Office for the Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOO) created by President Karzai in 2008 were just a new outlet for the same old staff at GIAAC.

During the first three years of President’s Ghani tenure, the number of institutions has blossomed. According to a 2017 UNAMA report on anti-corruption “18 separate bodies tasked with implementing aspects of the government’s anti-corruption efforts” were operational in 2017. “The sheer number of existing anti-corruption bodies,” said the report, “presents a significant challenge to coordination efforts.”

Indeed, the closure of HOO, which began in 2014, gave rise to four new institutions: the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) and the High Council for Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption in 2016; the Administration on Registration and Assessment of Assets, located within the Office of Administrative Affairs of the President and; the Deputy Attorney General for Anti-corruption in 2017.

The increase in the number of institutions also coincided with the approval of a new Afghanistan National Strategy for Combatting Corruption in September 2017. (5) Some institutions, such as the Deputy Attorney General for Anti-Corruption, were created in line with the new strategy (see the 2018 US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, SIGAR, report here and UNAMA’s 2018 report here).

Nevertheless, these changes in the institutional landscape resulted in a situation, UNAMA’s 2018 report on anti-corruption found, in which key Afghan anti-corruption institutions were based on decrees not yet approved by parliament. (6) Decrees and regulations, the report said, “may be altered any time.”

Moreover, a high and fluctuating number of institutions over a period of almost 18 years has done little to reduce corruption throughout the country – and may even have increased it. While everyday abuse of public officials in their interaction with citizens did decrease in 2018 (see footnote 1) – which may be a blip or the start of something more sustained – misuse of public funds has persisted. As a 2018 report on anti-corruption by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) put it: “If the Afghan government continues not to take action against public officials who violate internal codes of ethics, a climate of corruption within the Afghan government will endure.”

Which are the current anti-corruption institutions and what do they do?

In the following section, the key institutions in Afghanistan at the forefront of the country’s fight against ‘a climate of corruption’ are laid out. This section provided an overview of the institutions according to their general area of work, ie policy making; prevention and oversight; investigation and prosecution; and institutional auditors. Each institution is described and a short overview of their achievements and shortfalls is discussed, based on the 2019 UNAMA report and other available reports.

Policymaking

1. The High Council on Governance, Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption

A key policy-making and coordination body, the High Council for Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption was established by presidential decree on 17 August 2016. According to its terms of reference, the High Council’s goals are to reform and reinforce the justice system, improve the legislative framework and fight corruption. It is chaired by the president and includes most senior members of government, the judiciary and independent institutions. (7) It became active in 2017, when, according to the 2018 UNAMA report, it adopted the new Anti-Corruption Strategy (on 28 September) and institutional reform plans under the overall Justice Sector Reform Plan (on 22 June 2017).

The work of the High Council is supported by sub-committees on legislative issues, justice and anti-corruption. The legislative and justice committees are chaired by Second Vice-President Muhammad Sarwar Danesh, while the anti-corruption committee is chaired by Attorney General Farid Hamidi. In line with the anti-corruption strategy, an additional Special Secretariat to monitor and report on the strategy’s implementation was established in 2018. The Special Anti-Corruption Secretariat consists of a group of experts in five key areas: monitoring key ministries/departments; revenue and expenditure; specific decisions of the High Council on the law; anti-corruption and; communications and evaluation. It receives reports on the implementation of the strategy from ministries and government departments and presents unified reports to the president. The High Council is one of the eight development councils listed in the Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework (ANPDF) and is also responsible for overseeing two National Priority Programmes, the National Justice Sector and Judicial Reform Plan (NJSRP), and the Effective Governance Programme.

According to the 2019 UNAMA report, the High Council was also included in the new Anti-Corruption Law, according to which its main goals are to fight corruption and establish coordination among relevant entities under the chairmanship of the president.

In 2018 and 2019, the High Council adopted a Subnational Governance Policy and revised the National Anti-Corruption Strategy. However, according to UNAMA’s report, there is room for improvement in the High Council’s work. The report said the government should consider: turning the High Council sub-committees into technical expert working groups; creating a mechanism to advance the implementation of the National Justice Sector Reform Plan; and codify the participation of civil society and independent institutions in High Council meetings.

Prevention and Oversight

2. Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC)

The Independent Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) was established through a presidential executive decree in 2010 as part of the HOO. The institution has had an important role in monitoring, evaluating and reporting anti-corruption issues in Afghanistan. It is famous for its ‘vulnerability to corruption’ assessments of Afghan institutions, publicly available on its website.

In September 2016, in another executive decree (no 115) on the amendment of legal personality duties, functioning and authorities of the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, it was separated from the HOO and tasked with focussing on five separate areas: monitoring and evaluating anti-corruption efforts by the government and the international community; issuing recommendations for introducing reforms; monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness, transparency and accountability of international community aid; monitoring the implementation of its recommendations; and reporting on the status of implementation of the Committee’s recommendations and overall situation of corruption in the country to the president, parliament and the international community.

The MEC’s commissioners consist of six senior anti-corruption experts selected by the Afghan government and its international backers, with the chairmanship alternating between an Afghan and an international every six months.

The MEC’s legal foundation, an executive decree, is vulnerable to political change and influence as it can be easily changed at any time. There are no legal obligations for the next Afghan president to sustain it. However, if the MEC’s mandate was codified in a law that was passed by parliament, it would be more difficult and time-consuming to alter it.

3. National Procurement Commission

The National Procurement Commission (NPC) is the oversight commission of the National Procurement Authority (NPA), established in 2015. The NPA, which reports to the NPC, monitors and supervises procurement proceedings for efficiency, transparency and compliance with the law, and monitors the progress of contract implementation in accordance with procurement rules and procedures. Both the NPA and the NPC are chaired by the president.

The NPC is composed of the ministers of Finance, Economy and Justice and has the authority to review and approve contracts that are beyond the threshold authority of procuring entities and determine the duties and authorities of such entities. As well as the president, commission meetings are attended by the chief executive and second vice-president and also civil society, representatives of the parliament and some international observers. The NPC holds regular weekly meetings. For example, in 2018, UNAMA reported it held 45 weekly meetings and they were open and transparent.

However, there have been some changes in how the procurement authorities work. In November 2018, the president issued an executive decree (No. 100), according to which “effective from the beginning of fiscal year 2019, the NPA will be responsible for completing the procurement process, from the start to conclusion of contract, for all procurement falling within the jurisdiction of the NPC [ie above a certain monetary threshold].” This means that the NPA conducts the whole procurement process and not just facilitates it. This, according to the 2019 UNAMA report, points to increased centralisation of the procurement process:

[…] this centralization of procurement within a single entity also risks consolidating corruption, rather than preventing it. It may also result in depriving procurement units in government entities from acquiring relevant skills and experience on procurement matters.

4. Deputy Attorney General for Anti-Corruption

On 4 March 2018, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) Law was amended to create a dedicated Deputy Attorney General for Anti-Corruption Affairs (DAG-AC). The 2017 Anti-Corruption Strategy directed that all anti-corruption bodies, with the exception of the MEC, should be merged under the DAG-AC. The office was, among other tasks, assigned preventive functions, and functions that included “analysing and assessing criminal causes and proposing criminal policy initiatives to the government” and “recommending precautionary measures on crime commission to competent authorities.” All of these go beyond the typical scope of a prosecution office. This was mainly done in order to integrate staff members of the dissolved HOO. As a result, a massive office was created with 367 professional, 94 administrative and 102 support staff. Interestingly, the DAG-AC was not assigned administrative oversight of the Anti-Corruption and Justice Centre (ACJC) Chief Prosecutor, who continues to report directly to the Attorney General.

In June 2018, the former chief prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Justice Centre, Muhammad Alef Erfani was appointed deputy attorney general for anti-corruption but was then moved to the post of chief appeals prosecutor for Herat province in November 2018. Erfani told AAN in an interview conducted on 9 October 2018 while he was still the DAG-AC, that “no matter where you work on anti-corruption, you are always on the front line.” However, he had little to report on the achievements of the newly established deputy office. It seemed then that he was also struggling with the DAG-AC’s broad mandate.

The 2019 UNAMA report found that not only was the Deputy Attorney General for Anti-Corruption Affairs’ mandate unclear, so too was the role of his 367-staffed office since, so early on, but it had also been faced with “an abrupt change in leadership.” “These difficulties,” the UNAMA said in its report, “are likely to have led to a low output of the DAG-AC over the past year.”

In its recommendations to the government, UNAMA’s 2019 report said it was necessary to “clarify the role of the Deputy Attorney General for Anti-Corruption.” UNAMA further recommended that the government, having created the Anti-Corruption Commission, should “assess whether the [DAG-AC] office’s massive tashkil is still required” and that maybe, instead, the government should consider strengthening the DAG-AC’s prosecutorial functions.

5. Anti-Corruption Commission (to be established)

In line with the new Anti-Corruption Law, an independent Anti-Corruption Commission should be established.  Once set up, it should function as a corruption prevention body in line with Article 6 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). The commission is tasked with general corruption prevention measures, development and oversight of the Anti-Corruption Strategy approved by the High Council, as well as research, awareness-raising and training. It is also mandated to receive information on corruption offences and refer them to the competent authorities and to propose anti-corruption legislation and measures to counter corrupt practices in institutions. The commission will also collect and register asset declarations of government staff and high-ranking officials after this function is transferred to it within twelve months of its establishment.

Photo by BAY ISMOYO / AFP

The commission’s broad mandate overlaps with those of several other institutions and officials, including that of the Deputy Attorney General for Anti-Corruption, the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC), the Office for Asset Registration and Verification, and the Special Secretariat under the High Council. According to the 2019 UNAMA report, “this is a result of the drafting history of the law and a somewhat inconsistent approach to anti-corruption reforms.”

The 2017 National Anti-Corruption Strategy did not provide for a dedicated corruption prevention body but dissolved the unsuccessful HOO and moved its functions to other institutions. The Government countered criticisms about the lack of a dedicated independent corruption prevention body by stating that such a body would not work in the Afghan context, arguing instead to streamline existing anti-corruption bodies. The Anti-Corruption Law created the new Commission, but the legal basis of other institutions has not been amended to reflect this change.

It remains to be seen how these conflicting mandates will be resolved once the commission is set up. One of UNAMA’s key recommendations to the government is to clarify the roles of the Deputy Attorney General for Anti-Corruption and the newly created Anti-Corruption Commission.

Investigation and Prosecution

6. Anti-Corruption Justice Centre (ACJC)

On 30 June 2016, President Ghani established, through an executive decree, the Anti-Corruption Justice Centre (ACJC) with the purpose of investigating, prosecuting and adjudicating major corruption cases. The creation of the ACJC, however, was a donor-led effort and not genuinely Afghan-driven. An article in the “Journal of Complex Operations” offers a first-hand account of these efforts. “Initially,” the article said, “the effort truly included the entire international community, with meetings being held at the EU compound, the British Embassy, or one of UNAMA’s compounds, but this large working group became too fragmented and unwieldy; and the core group agreed that an ambassador was needed to honcho the effort.” According to the 2018 SIGAR anti-corruption report, “all of the ACJC’s buildings, vehicles, fuel, and other assets have been donated by the international community.”

According to its mandate, the ACJC has jurisdiction over corruption cases involving more than 10 million Afghanis(currently about 125,000 USD); bribery, money laundering, destruction or the selling of cultural and historical relics, crimes against internal or external security, illegal extraction of mines, and land usurpation involving more than five million Afghanis (currently about 63,000 USD) and; cases involving high-ranking government officials, such as deputy-ministers, generals, governors, and Provincial Council members regardless of the amount of money involved. In addition, the High Council on Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption may refer cases to the ACJC even if they do not meet the criteria mentioned above, though this referral option has never been used. Cases that do not meet the jurisdictional threshold of the ACJC continue to be investigated and prosecuted before ordinary provincial courts.

The UNAMA report found that from its inception to mid-May 2019, the ACJC court has tried 223 defendants in 57 cases before its trial chamber and 173 defendants in 52 cases before its appellate chamber. Thirty-six of its cases against 117 accused have been decided after an appeal to the Supreme Court, the report said. It had also issued 127 warrants and summonses, out of which only 13 warrants and 39 summonses could be executed to date, with only a single defendant tried as a result. According to UNAMA, the number of defendants tried in their absence before the ACJC remained high in 2018 and 2019, at 20 per cent. It also said:

Most of the defendants tried by the ACJC [since its inception] have been employees of the MoI [Ministry of Interior] with sizeable numbers from municipalities, [and] the Ministries of Finance and Defense.

But this ‘output’, UNAMA said, has been fluctuating. For example, there was a noticeable decline in the number of cases tried in the second half of 2018; from 1 April 2018 to 31 December 2018, 11 cases were tried at the Primary Court and 15 at the Appeal Court. (8) This compared with the period between 1 January 2019 and mid-May 2019, in which the Primary Court heard 13 cases, while the Appeal Court heard nine cases. UNAMA also found that in the period between January 2018 and April 2019, “not a single defendant affiliated with the MoD [Ministry of Defence] was tried.” The report said that although the Attorney General indicated that several MoD officials had been indicted, “the indictments had been returned, through judicial rulings, for the prosecutor to cover gaps in the investigation.” Nevertheless, while no MoD official was tried in the abovementioned period, the appeal in one case had been heard shortly before UNAMA published its report.

The report also notes an increase “in the number of private businessmen indicted and tried, mostly for money laundering or illegal transfer of cash.” It concluded:

While the quality of cases being tried by the ACJC generally declined, in terms of the rank of the accused, there was a marginal increase in the amounts ordered by the court in compensation, restitution and confiscation.

UNAMA’s report also said that after emerging from the difficulties of its inception phase, the “ACJC should now be able to deliver on consistently prosecuting high-ranking or high-value corruption cases.”

The decline in the number of cases in 2018 also corresponds with a considerable turn-over in both senior and junior staff in the ACJC prosecution office. In June 2018 following chief prosecutor Mohammad Alef Erfani’s promotion to the position of DAG-AC, a new ACJC chief prosecutor, Fazel Sultan Safi, was appointed. “The appointment did not follow a public call [for applications],” the 2019 UNAMA report said.

The ACJC is also mentioned in the new Anti-Corruption Law, which, if and when passed by parliament, will bring about the long-awaited legislated codification of the ACJC (as opposed to by executive decree). The law contains provisions aimed at facilitating investigations by ACJC’s prosecutors and strengthening the anti-corruption work of the Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF) by placing it directly within the Minister of Interior.

7. Special Court of the Supreme Court

The constitution stipulates that the highest-ranking officials such as ministers who are accused of crimes are to be tried by a special court. In mid-2018, the Supreme Court, for the first time in its history, constituted a special panel chaired by Justice Muhammad Zaman Sangari and two other Supreme Court Judges (Barat Ali Matin and Abdul Hasib Ahadi) in accordance with the Special Courts Law, to hear the case of the former minister for Telecommunications and Information Technology, Abdul Razaq Wahidi.

The former minister was indicted for the misuse of authority under Article 285(2) of the 1976 Penal Code, for allegedly profiting from the recruitment of 37 staff members and from the installation of a real-time telecommunications tax accounting system. The trial was broadcast live on television, with court appearances on 2 and 21 July 2018. In the live broadcast, the former minister attempted to shift the blame to the then-Minister of Finance. On 25 December 2018, the Special Court acquitted the defendant on all charges for lack of evidence, despite having repeatedly returned the case to the prosecution for further investigation. The 2019 UNAMA report said:

Regrettably, the Supreme Court has so far not published its decision in the case and its legal analysis and reasoning therefore remain unknown.

Four high-profile cases remain pending with the Supreme Court as of May 2019, UNAMA’s new report said.

8. Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF)

In 2009, the Afghan government created the Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF). From the beginning, the MCTF has been mentored by the FBI. They helped to build the capacity of the task force to investigate organized crime, kidnapping and corruption cases and develop cases for prosecution by the Afghan Attorney General’s Office. The US government, according to a report from SIGAR, provided at least 15.5 million USD to assist the MCTF, including refurbishing and maintaining its facilities and training and mentoring its investigators. In July 2010, the MCTF went for its first big arrest, bringing in the chief of administration of the National Security Council, Muhammad Zia Salehi, on corruption charges. However, President Karzai ordered his immediate release. The US backed off, deciding not to support the MCTF prosecution. It thereby consolidated the effective impunity enjoyed by the highest-ranking Afghan officials from anti-corruption efforts. Karzai’s successful interference ruined the Major Crimes Task Force. Since then, it has achieved little. Almost the entire original leadership of the unit emigrated to the US following the shutdown of the Salehi investigation and has experienced instability in its leadership ever since.

The task force, nevertheless, was kept alive in the shadows of its one-time-off glory. In 2016, with the creation of the ACJC, it was given a second chance. However, a revamping of the unit was marked with confusion and conflict. The 2018 SIGAR report on Afghanistan’s anti-corruption efforts, for example, pointed out that, “despite efforts by the Afghan government to clarify the law, Afghan officials have differing opinions about when the MCTF’s detective role ends and when the Attorney General’s Office’s (AGO) investigative role begins, which has led to recurring conflict between these two organizations.”

The same report also said that “a lack of resources and security has been a continued detriment for detectives, investigators, prosecutors, and judges in Afghanistan” and that “the MCTF relies on the international community to provide resources for its day-to-day operations because it cannot count on the MOI to fully authorize its funding.” The report said that in one case in 2017:

The MOI’s leadership appears to have halved the MCTF’s budget as a punitive measure because MCTF detectives refused to turn over an embezzlement case worth $3.8 million to the “notoriously ineffective” MOI Inspector General. (The MCTF detectives carried forward with the case and it was eventually tried at the ACJC, but the courts only convicted the lowest-ranked defendants, and only for their attempts to bribe the MCTF to drop the case.)

Furthermore, the unit also struggled with its new leadership, which was itself accused of unethical and corrupt behaviour. In April 2018, UNAMA reported, “the director of MCTF has been removed and despite allegations of unethical and corrupt behaviour, he was never formally charged.” Between April and September 2018, it said, the unit had two acting directors, before the current director, Colonel Muhammad Hamed, was appointed.

In October 2018, the SIGAR in its regular quarterly report said that the MCTF did “not appear to be the lead Afghan government investigative agency for high profile corruption crimes, as intended” and that its investigators were “not the best qualified, with some investigators possibly being assigned to the MCTF as a form of patronage.”

9. Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Afghanistan(FinTRACA)

FinTRACA was established based on a legislative decree on Anti-Money Laundering and

Proceeds of Crime Law in 2006. It is the financial intelligence unit of the Central Bank. Its mandate is to track money flows and prevent money laundering and terrorism financing. It analyses financial crimes and disseminates financial intelligence to the Attorney General’s Office and other government and intelligence agencies to assist them in combatting money laundering and financial terrorism.

It is one of the few accountability institutions whose mandate is based in law. Since its inception, the office has been working well, reporting its output regularly on an annual basis. In 2018, for example, the FinTRACA reported that it had transferred 56 cases to relevant government agencies for investigation and prosecution, which included eight to the AGO, 16 to the MoI and 20 to the National Directorate of Security, among others.

The 2019 UNAMA report contains a detailed list of FinTRACA achievements, but also notes that more work to counter money-laundering and terrorism financing is required, especially since the European Commission blacklisted Afghanistan for strategic deficiencies in this area. The report said:

In February 2019, the European Commission adopted a blacklist of 23 third countries, including Afghanistan, for having strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks. Although the list was rejected by some European Union member states, Afghanistan’s appearance on it is a sign that it needs to continue to strengthen its commendable efforts to counter money-laundering and terrorism financing.

Institutional Auditors

10. Supreme Audit Office

The Supreme Audit Office comes from a long lineage of similar institutions from Afghanistan’s past. The first was theGeneral Department for the Audit of Accounts established in 1945, within the purview of the prime minister’s office. Its main purpose was to audit the financial and accounting affairs of the government. The General Department for the Audit of Accounts name was changed to the Court of Accounts in 1954 with the approval of parliament. The responsibilities of the office remained the same. In 1965, the office was again renamed, becoming the General Department for the Audit of Accounts. A code of conduct and audit manual was issued during that period. In 1977, the again renamed Court of Accounts within the purview of the president’s office was approved by a new law. During the Soviet-backed PDPA regime, in 1984, its name and mandate were again changed. As the Governmental Committee of Councils Minister Controllers, it was responsible for auditing economic, cultural and social activities, including construction, healthcare, transport and trade activities. In 1992, it lost its independent status and functioned under the Office of Administrative Affairs. In 2002 it regained its independent status and became known as the Control and Audit Office. Its last re-naming was in 2013. Since then, the Supreme Audit Office has worked in line with a law passed by parliament.

According to the 2013 law, the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) has a powerful mandate. It has the authority to audit the accounting and financial affairs of the president’s office and its related entities; the national assembly; the judiciary; central and local institutions and related units within and outside the country; general independent directorates; independent commissions; the Attorney General’s Office; municipalities; enterprises, government companies and state joint stock companies and; other entities that utilise or hold public funds or public property.

Yet, despite this wide-ranging power to look into financial irregularities, it has never used it. For example, in 2017 an MP accused the speaker of the parliament of embezzling Wolesi Jirga funds (see this AAN detailed account of the case). As AAN reported, the media claimed that 50 million Afghanis (approximately 725,000 USD) had been taken from the Wolesi Jirga’s budget to pay for the rent of the speaker’s house, guest house and office during the preceding five years. Although this was all made public, the SAO’s annual audits noted no irregularities in the Wolesi Jirga budget. Nor did it question the almost one million USD spent on house rents.

The second issue with the SAO is its leadership. Director Sharif Sharifi, a Tajik from Panjshir province with a master’s degree in Natural Science, is the brother of former Wolesi Jirga speaker, former vice-president and a leading figure in the Jamiat-e Islami/Shura-ye Nizar faction, Yunus Qanuni. Sharifi held this position – auditor general – from 2002 until earlier this year. He had also been the driving force behind the 2013 law, which, after it was passed by the Wolesi Jirga, secured him a further six-year term in the same office. Finally,  In February 2019, the president appointed a new SAO director based on the 2017 revisions to the law. The new auditor general is a relatively young man named Muhammad Na’em Haqmal (born in 1980) who is from Sar-e Pul province.

The end of Sharifi’s term coincided with President Ghani’s drive to amend the 2013 SAO Law. According to the UNAMA report, the first round of amendments to the law did not bring about the required in-depth reforms. The report said:

Besides unnecessary changes in the terminology, the 2017 amendments reduced the Auditor General’s term of appointment from six to four years, while retaining the President’s appointment power. This contravened the recommendation in international standards and norms, which states: “(T)he independence of [State audit institutions’] heads and members (of collegial institutions), including security of tenure and legal immunity in the normal discharge of their duties” should be ensured and they should be “given appointments with sufficiently long and fixed terms, to allow them to carry out their mandates without fear of retaliation”. 

UNAMA did welcome amendments that require the accounting and auditing carried out by the SAO to be up to the standards of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. As of May 2019, the draft law was still with the Ministry of Justice for consideration.

Conclusion, and what to watch out for in Afghan anti-corruption efforts

Many institutions have been created supposedly to counter corruption in the years since 2001. Yet, the country has little to show for them. The 2019 UNAMA report, although detailing some sensible, positive developments, highlighted some serious shortfalls. It is worrying that some 18 years into state-building and over ten years since the country ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption, it still cannot deliver on a basic requirement – truly independent anti-corruption institutions. In Afghanistan high-centralised state, some anti-corruption-related bodies still come directly under the president’s authority. In other words, the person with the power to appoint the leadership of these bodies then also often presides over them.

It remains to be seen how the conflicting mandates of the Anti-Corruption Commission and the recently created Deputy AGO on anti-corruption, will be resolved once the commission is created. We will also have to wait to see how the MEC and the Anti-Corruption Commission, both of which have a mandate to research and monitor anti-corruption, work in practice, and whether this lack of clarity will be a source of potential conflict and ineffectiveness between the two institutions.

The sheer number of institutions as well as frequent changes of leadership within most of them – while others have seen no change, itself also a problem – as well as recurrent amendments to the law do not inspire confidence. It could be argued that the fluctuating number of anti-corruption institutions have to do with presidents testing what format of institution works for their country and society. However, it looks more like anti-corruption efforts have mainly been inspired by something else – pressure from outside (particularly during the Karzai years) to be seen to be doing something. In a rentier economy, even anti-corruption institutions can be rent-seeking, at best, vehicles for deploying donor money, or at worst, places which support corruption, for example, if officials use cases to get bribes from alleged offenders to not pursue cases.

The only good news in all this is the minimal decline in petty corruption, as experienced by citizens. However, the lack of any high-profile trials means there is little fear among perpetrators that their criminal endeavours carry risk. This lack of judicial follow-through indicates that the political will to try to deal with grand corruption apparent in 2016 and 2017 has probably now faded. This should come as no surprise. 2019 is a presidential election year. It is most unlikely we will see any high-profile case at this politically-sensitive moment. On this current assessment, it seems apparent that, while the current state of anti-corruption institutions may or may not endure into the next presidency, grand corruption will certainly do so.

 

Edited by Sari Kouvo and Kate Clark

 

(1) According to a 2018 survey from the leading Afghan anti-corruption watchdog, Integrity Watch Afghanistan’s (IWA) perceptions and experiences of corruption estimated the total value of bribes in 2018 to have fallen to 1.65 billion USD (from 2.88 billion USD in 2016). In 2016, more than 70 per cent of Afghans thought that corruption was worse than it had been in 2014 when a similar survey was conducted. An earlier perception survey on corruption by UNODC in 2012 estimated that the total cost of bribes paid by Afghan citizens to public officials amounted to 3.9 billion USD that year (see here).

The IWA and UNODC reports are based on a survey on citizens’ perceptions and experiences. High-level corruption, which is usually not a theme of these surveys (but of official investigations and prosecutions), is also widespread. For example, see this AAN dossier on the Kabul Bank scandal, which involved Afghan officials and businessmen at the highest levels, including former President Karzai and First Vice President Marshal Fahim’s brothers, in the theft of nearly one billion USD, representing the state’s entrenched culture of corruption and cronyism. Until now, Afghan authorities have only retrieved 89 million USD from the debtors, less than 10 per cent of the stolen money.

(2) All of these new laws were passed through presidential legislative decrees and this practice (of passing key legislation by decree) was the topic of an earlier, 2018 UNAMA report on anti-corruption. It said this practice was not compliant with the UNCAC, which Afghanistan ratified on 25 August 2008. The report said:

Although UNCAC Articles 5, 6 and 36 do not require the adoption of a dedicated anti-corruption law, it recommends that the independence and accountability of anti-corruption institutions be “enshrined in law rather than executive decrees (which can easily create such a body but also abolish it).”

(3) According to the IWA report, Karzai appointed Dr Ludin as governor of Herat in 2002. However, Ismail Khan, then-governor of Herat, did not recognize Dr Ludin’s authority and forced him to leave the city. Upon his return to Kabul, President Karzai initially appointed Dr Ludin as an advisor and then as Director General of the General Independent Administration Against Corruption (GIAAC). The IWA report said:

The GIAAC was the first anti-corruption institution established in Afghanistan. Like many to follow, it was established without a study on the nature of corruption in the country and without a corresponding policy or strategy. As head of the GIAAC, the first thing Dr Ludin did was to initiate a corruption case against Ismail Khan. In addition to the case against Ismail Khan, the GIAAC initiated some 80 other cases, most of which were focused on foes of Dr Ludin.

(4) These included: the High Office for the Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOO); Major Crimes Task Force (MCTF); Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Afghanistan (FinTRACA); the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) within HOO.

(5) Approval of the anti-corruption strategy was also a benchmark to which the Afghan government committed itself at the Brussels Conference in October 2016. In Brussels, the Afghan government pledged to deliver on a number of benchmarks by certain deadlines. The High Council released the anti-corruption strategy on 12 October 2017 after it missed the mid-2017 deadline.

(6) These include, based on legislative presidential decrees, the Administration for Asset Registration and the former HOO); on executive presidential decrees MEC, ACJC, and the Special Secretariat of the High Council and; on a simple regulation, the Major Crimes Task Force.

(7) According to Decree 94 on the High Council for Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption from 17 August 2016, the permanent members of the High Council are: Chief Executive Officer; Second Vice President; Chief Justice; National Security Advisor; Director of Administrative Affairs of President‘s Office; Minister of Finance; Minister of Justice; Minister of Interior Affairs; Attorney General; General Director of the NDS; Presidential Advisors on Justice and Transparency affairs; Director of the Independent Commission on overseeing the Implementation of Constitution; Director of Independence Human Rights Commission; Director of Independent Directorate of Local Governance; Director of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption.

(8) According to the Attorney General’s Office, UNAMA reported, in the second half of 2018, the ACJC Chief Prosecutor submitted 35 indictments to the ACJC Primary Court of which the court referred 21 cases for the prosecution to cover identified gaps.

 

 

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The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has, at long last, almost seven months after the ballot was held, finalised the results of the 2018 parliamentary elections. The parliament itself is almost four years overdue – the elections should have been held in 2015. Even now, Afghanistan does not have a completely newly-elected Wolesi Jirga as Ghazni’s elections have yet to take place; they are only planned for 28 September 2019 (together with the presidential and provincial council elections). In this piece, AAN researcher Ali Yawar Adili looks at why it took so long to finalise the parliamentary elections and concludes that the inefficiencies, lack of clarity and failure to adhere to legal procedures – by government and commissions – is not encouraging for the upcoming presidential ballot. (A list of Afghanistan’s new MPs can be read in an annex to this piece.)

Announcement of final results

Late in the evening on 14 May 2019, the IEC finally published the results of the Kabul vote, thereby concluding the 2018 parliamentary elections, seven months after they were held on 20 and 21 October. (1) The following day, at the presidential palace, President Ashraf Ghani administered the swearing-in of the new MPs from Kabul and Paktia provinces (other MPs whose results were announced earlier had already been sworn in). Ghani called (see the video here) the seven-month-long election “a catastrophe.” It was, he said, was the result of the inefficacy of the former election commissions (the IEC and the Electoral Complaints Commissions, the EEC): “In the history of democratic systems, it is unprecedented that the results of an election should take seven months. I do not speak about other aspects of it because they are judicial, but there should be no doubt that the former commission, both commissions, were inefficient. There is a consensus in the country about it.”

The parliamentary elections were planned for 20 October 2018. By then, the election in Ghazni province had already been cancelled, so on the day itself, voters in only 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces went to the polls, along with those voting for the nation’s ten Kuchi representatives and one Sikh and Hindu representative. Even then, not all of the polling centres opened. 401 polling centres failed to open, said former IEC chairman Gula Jan Badi Sayyad, because of technical problems or security threats. AAN described the “technical shambles” and “triumph of administrative chaos”. The IEC had to extend the elections into a second day, opening those polling centres that had not opened on 20 October the following day (AAN’s reporting here).

In addition, the people of Kandahar went to cast their votes a week later, on 27 October 2018 (see AAN’s reporting here and here), a delay triggered by the killing of Kandahar’s Chief of Police General Abdul Razeq and head of NDS General Abdul Momin Hussainkhel two days before the elections had been due (AAN reporting here).

The new Wolesi Jirga is not fully complete, as Ghazni’s elections have yet to be held, something which even state officials sometimes overlook. One of the IEC deputy spokespeople speaking to Arman FM Safayi Shahr-e Programme on 15 May about the Kabul election results told the radio listeners that the IEC had “ended the parliamentary elections.” One of the presenters quipped, “Did you exclude Ghazni from the list?” The IEC had dropped the Wolesi Jirga elections in Ghazni after the government failed to resolve competing demands about the size of the constituency (AAN’s reporting here and here). Those elections are now scheduled for 28 September together with the presidential and provincial council elections. However, the constituency dispute remains unresolved and may yet resurface once the IEC begins voter registration there. According to article 104 of the electoral law, if elections are postponed or suspended, members of the elected bodies (for instance the Wolesi Jirga) should continue to serve in their positions until the holding of a new election and announcement of its results. So far, according to an MP from Ghazni, ten out of the 11 MPs remain in parliament: the eleventh, Chaman Shah Etemadi, was appointed the new head of the ECC secretariat.

Hasty inauguration of a new, incomplete parliament almost four years late

According to article 83 of the constitution, the Wolesi Jirga’s term ended on 1 Sartan 1394 (22 June 2015) and a new parliament had to have been inaugurated after elections which should have been held 30 to 60 days before that. (2) However, when the National Unity Government (NUG) was formed in the wake of the disputed 2014 presidential elections, it committed to carrying out fundamental electoral reform. More than three years were spent working on reforms, but little was achieved. This period, as AAN reported (see section two of AAN’s dossier here), was characterised by the NUG leaders’ wrangling over the establishment of the Special Electoral Reform Commission (SERC) (which had been envisaged in the NUG’s 2014 political deal); the SERC’s discussions and recommendations for electoral reform; parliament’s rejection of presidential legislative decrees that had adopted some of the SERC’s recommendations, and, finally; changes to the electoral law which were endorsed by legislative decree and the appointment of new electoral commissioners for the IEC and the ECC.

All this meant that the new parliament was inaugurated on 26 April 2019, almost four years after the constitutional end of the previous parliament’s term. (3) Moreover, it was inaugurated in spite of the fact that the final results from Kabul and Paktia had not yet been announced. A total of 38 seats (33 for Kabul and 5 for Paktia) were empty on the day of the inauguration. The IEC announced the final results of the Wolesi Jirga elections for Paktia province two days later and Kabul more than two weeks after that.

Similarly, on the day of the inauguration, the IEC hastily released the final results for three other outstanding provinces (Maidan Wardak, Kunduz and Baghlan) as well as those for the Kuchi constituency (five seats for Maidan Wardak, nine for Kunduz, eight for Baghlan and ten for the Kuchis). It is unclear whether or not the new MPs from these constituencies were able to participate in the inauguration at such short notice (unless they had been informed before the release of the results that they would be winners and were therefore ready to participate in the inauguration). MP Halima Askari from Maidan Wardak told AAN on 15 May that the five MPs from her province had been able to attend the inauguration, but had not yet received their election credentials from the IEC certifying they had been elected.

Two days before the inauguration of the parliament, on 24 April 2019, the IEC granted election credentials to 89 MPs from ten provinces (Kandahar, Helmand, Ghor, Badghis, Logar, Nangrahar, Herat, Takhar, Paktika and Balkh as well as the Hindu and Sikh constituency). IEC head Hawa Alam Nuristani said that the final results for these ten provinces and communities had been released by the new leadership of the IEC. A few months earlier, on 9 February, the former IEC granted credentials to 80 successful candidates from 18 provinces: Bamyan, Daikundi, Jawzjan, Uruzgan, Laghman, Kapisa, Zabul, Panjshir, Parwan, Khost, Samangan, Badakhshan, Faryab, Sar-e Pul, Farah, Nimruz, Kunar and Nuristan (the former IEC had, in fact, finalised the results of only these 18 provinces before its members were all sacked).

Article 88 of the electoral law says that election credentials should be awarded to the members of the Wolesi Jirga following the announcement of the final election results. (4) Yet, in total, only 169 new MPs out of a total of 250 had been fully approved well in advance of the inauguration; 70 other MPs had either not had their results, or not completed the procedure yet (ie, had not yet received their election certificates). Also, ten former MPs from Ghazni participated in the inauguration. (5)

However, President Ghani did not mention the hastiness of the event, saying only that the final results of the parliamentary elections for Kabul had not yet been announced: “I am sorry that the Kabul MPs are not in their seats. I wish the Kabul MPs were present [here] to listen to our programmes for Kabul city and Kabul province.”. Instead, President Ghani claimed that: “We inaugurated the assembly on the auspicious day of Friday to show that the president and the leadership of the National Unity Government cannot tolerate [even] one moment of procrastination in the inauguration of the National Assembly.” However, the rush to inaugurate the new parliament appeared to have been motivated rather by the need for elected MPs to attend the consultative peace Loya Jirga, which was held from 29 April to 3 May (see AAN’s reporting here and here).

Atta Muhammad Dehqanpur, an MP from Ghor province, had been elected as the interim speaker to preside over the inauguration on 26 April. This was in accordance with article four of the Wolesi Jirga Rules of Procedures which says that the oldest member should be appointed as pro tem speaker and the two youngest members should be appointed as pro tem deputy speaker and secretary. (6). Their duty is also to supervise the election of a permanent speaker, who will then supervise the election of the rest of the administrative boards.

The Wolesi Jirga had planned to hold its first plenary session on 11 May following the inauguration and to then elect its administrative board.‌ However, some of the Kabul candidates and their supporters gathered in front of the parliament and blocked the MPs’ entry as they did not want the elections for the administrative board to be held in their absence (which makes sense given that Kabul is the largest constituency with 33 seats) (See a media report here). According to article 87 of the constitution, the Wolesi Jirga should elect one member as the speaker for five years, and two members as the first and second deputy speakers and two members as the secretary and deputy secretary for one year.  (7)

On 16 May, the Wolesi Jirga conducted voting for the speaker. It was inconclusive. There were four candidates: Mir Rahman Rahmani (Parwan) who was the head of the economy commission in previous parliament (75 votes), Kamal Naser Osuli (Khost) who was previously head of the education/higher education commission (69 votes), Mirwais Yasini (Nangahar) (59 votes) and Omar Nasir Mujaddedi (Herat) (seven votes). The runoff will now be held between Rahmani and Osuli, according to Ghulam Hussain Naseri (Maidan Wardak) on Saturday, 18 May (media report here).

The second round might be hard fought and drawn-out. The previous Wolesi Jirga elected its speaker only one month and two days after its inauguration, after its members sat through sixteen sessions, with eighteen candidates competing in four rounds of balloting. Then, MPs used blank votes to prevent the election of any speaker. (AAN’s reporting here).

Change of commissioners

The 2018 parliamentary elections were administered by two different sets of commissions. On 22 November 2016, the 12 new electoral commissioners (seven for the IEC and five for the ECC) were sworn in at the presidential palace for a period of five and three years (see AAN’s reporting here). These commissions prepared for and held the parliamentary elections. The commissioners were in the middle of finalising the results and had announced them for 18 provinces when they were replaced by the new set of commissioners. This was done after growing calls by election observers and political parties for them to be dismissed and replaced. They were accused of misconduct and mismanagement and of being unfit to manage the upcoming presidential elections (AAN reporting here).

Interestingly, some of the Kabul candidates were among the new commissioners who adjudicated or announced the final results. However, they had not won seats, according to the preliminary results, so their adjudication of the results made no difference in their favour.

Controversy around the Kabul elections

The Kabul vote was questioned from the very beginning not only by candidates but also by IEC officials themselves. They included on 20 November, the acting head of the IEC office for Kabul, Zahir Akbari, who resigned from his post in protest at “widespread fraud and corruption allegations.” He said the elections in Kabul had been designed and conducted by a corrupt circle led by the head of the IEC secretariat Akbari Zamanzai. He had been called in to take over from Awal ul-Rahman Rudwal as head of the IEC’s Kabul office after he, Zamanzai and various other officials had been accused of violating the law. On 2 December, the IEC suspended its acting head of field operations for Kabul province, Obaidullah Niazi, for alleged bribe-taking. Niazi had only taken up the job very recently following the replacement of the entire provincial IEC office for Kabul. (AAN reporting here).

On 6 December, the ECC nullified all results for Kabul province. (8) It cited mismanagement, violations of the electoral law, dereliction of duty by the IEC and a lack of transparency as the main reasons. The IEC immediately condemned the ECC’s step as “hasty, unrealistic and political[ly motivated]” and as “disregard and disrespect of the efforts and the sacrifices on the day of elections.” The ECC subsequently withdrew its decision. Both IEC and ECC commissioners were fired by President Ghani before they could resolve the dispute over the Kabul vote. After the new commissioners took over, the ECC held consultation meetings with the political parties and civil society organisations on the Kabul vote (this is because the ECC had not adjudicated the complaints when they were fired).

The new ECC then annulled the previous recount and audits conducted by the previous commissioners and conducted a new recount and an audit based on the result sheets of the election days. (9) Chaman Shah Etemadi, the head of the ECC, had told the media that the earlier audit and recount not only had not resulted in the transparency of the results but also caused more “damage.” He said that if the ECC could be provided with 50 per cent of the result sheets from the first and second day of elections, the vote would be legitimised; otherwise, it might decide to nullify the votes entirely.

Muhammad Qasem Elyasi, the secretary and spokesman for the ECC who was himself a candidate from Kabul, told Etilaat Roz on 12 May that 12 per cent of the Kabul votes had been missing and that the most likely option was that the final results for Kabul would be announced based on 88 per cent of the votes. The ECC told media on 7 May that it had sent its decisions to the IEC. It then took the IEC a week to finally publish the results on 14 May.

The new commissioners confirmed most of the candidates who had been named as winners in the preliminary results and replaced four: Ajmal Gulab, Ahmad Zia Azemi Shinuzada, Muhammad Farhad Sediqi and Salima Nikbin were replaced by Abdul Razaq Istalefi, Erfanullah Erfan, Muhammad Naim Wardak and Parwin Durani. Salima Nikbin and Ajmal Gulab are unhappy with the final results: Nikbin alleged to the media that she had been on the list after the ECC’s adjudication, but had been excluded nonetheless because she lacks political support; Gulab claimed his name had been removed at the behest of the Palace.

IEC and ECC officials acknowledged there were problems with the Kabul vote. The ECC finally approved the results based on 88 per cent of the result sheets from the election days (Etilaat Roz reported) on 16 May that it had obtained documents showing that only 70 of the result sheets had been available and the remaining 30 had been missing). A single vote can matter in elections, so the absence of 12 (or 30) per cent of them is questionable.

Conclusion: Some lessons from the 2018 parliamentary elections

The inefficiency of the former commissioners was cited as the main reason for the problems with the 2018 parliamentary elections. However, in reality, there were many other problems in the parliamentary elections.

• First, the rules of the game were never clear well in advance of the elections. For instance, only a month before the elections, the IEC was pressured by political parties and the government to make a last-minute compromise and use biometric voter verification on election day (see AAN’s background of the issue here). As a result, as the author wrote at the time, the biometric machines, intended to serve as a panacea for all election ills, turned into a headache during the ballot. Those with a say in how the elections were going to be delivered – the government, political parties and the IEC – should have agreed on the rules well in advance.
• Second, there was a clear disregard on the part of both the government and the IEC for legal procedure. For instance, according to the electoral law, the postponement of the district council elections and the Wolesi Jirga elections in Ghazni had to be approved by a special committee. But the government never convened this committee. The disregard for legal procedure obscured the rules of the game for everyone involved because it showed that anything could be dropped or added at any time without the least attention to the rules spelt out by law. This, in turn, undermined the credibility of the election management bodies as well as the election itself (see AAN’s reporting here).
• Third was the inefficiency and shortcomings of the relevant institutions. For instance, the push for biometric voter verification was stimulated by concerns on the part of the political parties that the manual voter registration was flawed, as fake tazkeras had been used and thus the voter lists would be fraudulent and unreliable. The Afghanistan Central Civil Registration Authority (ACCRA) was responsible for issuing tazkeras under the Memorandum of Understanding it had signed with the IEC. It was the responsibility of ACCRA to ensure fake tazkeras were not distributed and if they were distributed, that they would be detected, but it was unclear whether it had a reliable database for the IEC to be able to cross-check voter registration data.

Given that the parliamentary elections were held three years late, voters could have expected a far better election. As it is, taking seven months to finalise the results of this grossly-delayed election has only added weight to the conclusion that electoral reform has failed. With the politically even more important presidential election looming, the prospect of a timely and fair ballot for Afghanistan’s next leader in the autumn has been made slimmer.

Edited by Sari Kouvo and Kate Clark

(1) Radio Television of Afghanistan (RTA) published (see here) the list of the winners from Kabul before it was published by the IEC. Sources from the IEC told AAN that they had a printout of the results, which they had to have a final look at to make sure it was accurate. It took them almost two hours to do this, during which time it was leaked (whereupon the RTA obtained a copy).

(2) Article 83 of the constitution says:

Members of the House of People shall be elected by the people through free, general, secret, and direct balloting.

The work period of the House of People shall terminate, after the disclosure of the results of the elections, on the 1st of Saratan of the 5th year and the new Parliament shall commence work.

The elections for members of the House of People shall be held 30 to 60 days prior to the expiration of the term of the House of People.

The number of the members of the House of People shall be proportionate to the population of each constituency, not exceeding the maximum of 250 individuals.

Electoral constituencies, as well as other related issues, shall be determined by the elections law.

The elections law shall adopt measures to attain, through the electorate system, general and fair representation for all the people of the country, and proportionate to the population of every province, on average, at least two females shall be the elected members of the House of People from each province.

(3) Parliament’s winter recess ended on 15 Hut 1397 (6 March 2019), but the president refused to inaugurate it with the old members. According to article 42 of the rules of procedures, the Wolesi Jirga has a 45 day-long summer recess from 1 Asad to 15 Sunbula and a 45 day-long winter recess from 1 Dalw to 15 Hut (21 January to 6 March 2019).

(4) An MP from Ghazni, in conversation with AAN, claimed that the State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Faruq Wardak, and Second Deputy Chief Executive Engineer Muhammad Khan who hails from Ghazni and some other Hezb-e Islami affiliates mainly from Ghazni did not want Ghazni MPs to attend the inauguration of the National Assembly. According to the MP, Wardak and others had argued that, based on the constitution, the new parliament should be inaugurated with the new MPs and Ghazni MPs were not new. The MP claimed that they had received an indication that Wardak and others had convinced the president of this as well.

The Ghazni MP said this contravened article 104 of the electoral law, which states that when an election is not held in a constituency, the former MPs can continue to work until the election is held. He contacted Wardak to check whether or not this was true and he confirmed it, the MP said. The MP went on to say that he then met Chief Executive Abdullah to raise the issue with him and, in his presence, Abdullah spoke with Wardak on the phone and promised to talk to the president, too.

The MP said that minister Wardak had then asked the Supreme Court, the Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution, the IEC and the ECC verbally and they had all said that the Ghazni MPs should remain in the office until new MPs were elected, and they should be invited to the inauguration.

(5) Article 88 of the electoral law says:

The Commission is obliged that after the announcement of the final election results, it shall issue an award a Certificate of Election to the President, Members of Wolesi Jirga, elected members of Meshrano Jirga members of the Provincial Councils, members of the District Councils, members of the Village Councils, mayors and the members of the Municipality Councils.

(6) Article 87 of the constitution:

Each of the two houses of the National Assembly, at the commencement of their work period, shall elect one member as president for the term of the legislature, and two members as first and second deputies and two members as secretary and assistant secretary for a period of one year.

These individuals shall form the administrative teams of the House of People as well as House of Elders. Duties of the administrative teams shall be determined by the Regulations on Internal Duties of each house.

(7) Article four of the Wolesi Jirga Rules and Procedures says:

• At the first sitting of the Jirga, the oldest Member, who is not a candidate for the position of Speaker, shall be appointed as Pro Tem Speaker.
• The oldest Member shall present his or her identity card to the Secretary-General in order to be appointed Pro Tem Speaker. The national identity card (Tazkara) shall determine the age of the Member.
• If there are two or more Members of exactly the same age, the Pro Tem Speaker shall be appointed by lottery.
• The two youngest Members of the Jirga, who are not candidates themselves, shall be appointed as Deputy and Secretary to the Pro Tem Speaker.
• The method of election of the Secretary and Deputy to the Pro Tem Speaker of the Jirga shall be in accordance with clauses 3 and 4 of this article.

(8) It called for the dismissal of five current and former IEC officials named (head and deputy of the IEC secretariat, Ahmad Shah Zamanzai, and Abdul Aziz Samim, respectively, and the head of IT, Sayyed Ibrahim Sadat, head of field operations, Zmarai Qalamyar, and former head of Kabul IEC, Awal ul-Rahman Rudwal) for “mismanagement, violation of laws, regulations and procedures of the electoral commissions and failure to exercise legal authorities and obligations on timely basis which led to widespread electoral violations and crimes.” (AAN reporting here.)

(9) On 15 April 2019, the ECC held a consultative meeting with election observer groups about the Kabul elections. According to its report, the representatives of the election observers stressed that the most widespread election fraud had been committed during the recount of the Kabul votes and this needed serious attention. They believed that reviewing the result sheets from election day and addressing the objections and complaints from the Kabul elections would yield satisfactory results.

On 21 April, the ECC consulted representatives of political parties. According to its report, the review of election day result sheets and the recount phase of Kabul votes, identifying ghost votes and nullifying Kabul votes were discussed by the political party representatives. (10) On 25 April 2019, the ECC made the following decisions: 1) all the documents related to the appeal cases for Kabul province should be quarantined and sealed by the ECC members in the ECC headquarters; 2) all the reviews, audits and recounts conducted (by the outgoing IEC and ECC) were to be annulled; 3) all the result sheets from the first and second day (20 and 21 October 2018) of the elections in the specified polling centres and stations, having fulfilled the necessary criteria of the election procedures and regulations were to be considered valid; 4) the IEC is obligated to provide all the documents related to Kabul to the ECC; 5) all the original result sheets from the first and second day (20 and 21 October 2018) of the elections should be quarantined and sealed by the ECC members in the location specified by the IEC, and; 6) all the IEC and ECC staff should cooperate seriously and comprehensively in addressing the Kabul cases.

Annex: Below is the table for the new MPs from 33 provinces plus ten Kuchi MPs and one Hindu and Sikh representative.

1. Kabul: the largest constituency with 33 seats, including nine for women. The results were announced on 14 May, late evening. The first 24 are male and the remaining nine are female.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 384 Haji Ajmal Rahmani 1-1186-37 11,158 2.0 2 152 Al Hajj Abdul Qayyum Khairkhawh 1-1442-4 8,748 1.5 3 528 Khan Agha Rezayi 1- 1162-88 7,850 1.4 4 217 Al Hajj Mullah Muhammad Khan Ahmadi 1-1283-128 6,727 1.2 5 297 Feda Muhammad Ulfat Saleh 1-1389-78 6,690 1.2 6 34 Ahmad Jawid Jaihun 1-1537-14 6,213 1.1 7 469 Mir Amanullah Guzar 1-1164-56 6,095 1.1 8 45 Al Hajj Amir Gul Shahin 1-1188-22 6,061 1.1 9 2 Ghulan Hussain Naseri 1-1479-47 6,024 1.1 10 788 Dr Ramazan Bashardost 1-1704-56 5,983 1.0 11 79 Al Hajj Sayyed Muhammad Muhammadi 1-1704-56 5,339 0.9 12 749 Al Hajj Allah Gul Mujahed 1-1521-25 5,198 0.9 13 432 Haji Khan Muhammad Wardak 1-1185-51 5,128 0.9 14 430 Al Hajj Qazi Mir Afghan Safi 1-1265-55 4,628 0.8 15 89 Najibullah Naser 1-1023-75 4,401 0.8 16 529 Habib-ul Rahman Sayyaf 1-1297-60 4,014 0.7 17 220 Anwar Khan Oryakhel 1-1432-81 3,885 0.7 18 477 Sufi Abdul Razeq Estalefi 1-1224-77 3,749 0.7 19 84 Tawfiq Wahdat 1-1066-102 3,716 0.7 20 475 Haji Zergai Habibi 1-1444-12 3,594 0.6 21 535 Muhammad Naim Wardak 1-1249-30 3,520 0.6 22 354 Haji Hafizullah Jalili 1-1209-19 3,449 0.6 23 484 Erfanullah Erfan 1-1176-45 3,429 0.6 24 129 Obaidullah Kalimzai Wardak 1-1010-32 3,418 0.6 25 760 Wakil Fatema Nazari 1-1577-5 2,736 0.5 26 631 General Nazifa Zaki 1-1228-11 1,441 0.3 27 608 Shinkai Karokhel 1-1711-104 1,406 0.2 28 377 Mursal Nabizada 1-1686-124 1,396 0.2 29 324 Fawzia Naseryar Guldarayi 1-1220-1048 1,287 0.2 30 19 Rubina Jalali 1-1330-1 1,259 0.2 31 375 Mariam Sama 1-1818-141 1,255 0.2 32 575 Zuhra Nawruzi 1-1072-78 1,223 0.2 33 266 Bibi Haji Parwin Durani 1-1588-3 1,149 0.2

 

2. Kapisa: it has four seats, including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 17,952 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 34 Mirdad Khan Nejrabi 2-1249-103 5,849 15.1 2 21 Engineer Mir Haidar Afzali 2-1685-42 5,370 13.9 3 15 General Muhammad Iqbal Safi 2-201-1142-13 5,355 13.9 4 33 Khadija Elham Khalili 2-1274-34 1,378 3.6

 

3. Parwan: it has six seats, including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 52,988 votes cast.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 16 Abdul Aziz Humayun Harirud 3-1593-34 14,690 17.1 2 12 Al Hajj Mir Rahman Rahmani 3-1093-1 10,693 12.4 3 1 Sediq Ahmad Osmani 3-1541-2 9,961 11.6 4 17 Al Hajj Abdul Zaher Salangi 3-1441-18 9,329 10.8 5 7 Zakia Sangin 3-1306-4 5,415 6.3 6 24 Master Samia Aziz Sadat 3-1177-15 2,900 3.4

 

4. Maidan Wardak: has five seats, including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 26,407 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 7 Al Hajj Abdul Ahmad Durani 4-1185-6 7,731 13.2 2 8 Abdul Rahman Wardak 4-1593-8 6,893 11.7 3 26 Muhammad Mahdi Rasekh 4-1297-27 6,025 10.2 4 18 Halima Askari 4-1541-31 3,219 5.5 5 30 Engineer Hamida Akbari 4-1477-40 2,539 4.3

 

5. Logar: four seats, including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 4,427 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes %

  1 1 Muhammad Khaled Momand 5-1437-22 1,474 9.5 2 29 Shahpur Khan Hussainzai 5-1022-41 1,361 8.8 3 12 Engineer Muhammad Asef Nabizai 5-1185-12 1,016 6.5 4 30 Humma Ahmadi 5-1397-27 576 3.7

 

6. Nangrahar: has 14 seats, including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 86,104 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 2 Abdul Karim Karimi 6-1274-12 10,437 3.9 2 7 Feraidun Khan Mumand 6-1441-9 8,311 3.1 3 92 Malek Qais Nur Aghah Malekzai 6-1401-31 7,966 3.0 4 36 Abdul Rauf Shpun 6-1593-83 7,706 2.9 5 73 Amir Muhammad Yar 6-1265-145 7,137 2.7 6 69 Nabiullah Baz 6-1185-6 7,106 2.6 7 71 Mirwais Yasini 6-1297-32 6,858 2.6 8 82 Al Hajj Hazrat Ali 6-1034-57 6,463 2.4 9 56 Abrarullah Murad 6-1093-99 6,273 2.3 10 20 Nayaz Wali Muslim 6-1261-172 5,652 2.1 11 72 Arian Yun 6-1609-7 4,446 1.7 12 41 Bibi Haji Lailuma Wali Hukmi 6-1305-78 3,340 1.2 13 32 Saima Khogyani 6-1330-69 2,692 1.0 14 84 Anisa Omrani 6-1637-235 1,717 0.6

 

7. Laghman: four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 11,740 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 23 General Abdul Munir Tarakhel 7-1297-6 4,048 9.1 2 10 Muhammad Rafi Mamuzai 7-1174-64 3,021 6.9 3 19 Engineer Muhammad Alem Qarar 7-1441-13 2,884 6.5 4 1 Al Hajj Zifnon Safi 7-1305-2 1,787 4.0

 

8. Panjshir: two seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 10,033 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 12 Haji Zal Muhammad Zalmai Nuri 8-1265-2068 8,456 27.2 2 4 Qazi Rahela Salim 8-1250-7 1,577 5.1

 

9. Baghlan: eight seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 43,271 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 72 Al Hajj Asadullah Shahbaz 9-1274-91 8,738 7.2 2 4 Muhammad Azem Mohesni 9-1329-120 6,481 5.3 3 25 Atiq Ramin 9-1541-33 5,828 4.8 4 44 Al Hajj Mamur Ahmadzai 9-1249-41 5,508 4.5 5 86 Dr Muhammad Nasim Mudaber 9-1009-48 4,895 4.0 6 41 Al Hajj Ustad Abdul Razaq Hashemi 9-1273-15 4,345 3.6 7 69 Shurkia Essakhel 9-1197-54 4,701 3.8 8 62 Nurian Hamidi 9-1553-9 2,775 2.3

 

10. Bamyan: four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 35,662 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 38 Muhammad Rahim Aliyar 10-1297-134 10,529 8.4 2 1 Al Hajj Zahiruddin Jan Agha 10-1461-3 9,945 7.9 3 35 Sayyed Muhammad Jamal Fakur Beheshti 10-1094-8 9,021 7.2 4 29 Nekhbakht Fahimi 10-1009-62 6,167 4.9

 

11. Paktika: has four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 11,094.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Canadidate No Votes % 1 18 Muhammad Mirza Katawazai 12-1182-12 5,142 17.6 2 24 Nader Khan Katawazai 12-1665-8 2,756 9.5 3 6 Khalid Asad 12-1234-72 2,701 9.3 4 5 Suraya Akbari 12-1133-64 495 1.7

 

12. Paktia: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 12,145 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 56 Muhammad Ibrahim Ghukhtalai 13-1173-46 3,206 6.3 2 18 Dr Yarbaz Khan Hamidi 13-1298-62 2,544 5.0 3 76 Nasib Muqbel 13-1289-10 2,465 4.8 4 1 Sayyed Hassan Gardizi 13-1141-5 2,214 4.3 5 30 Razia Saadat Mangal 13-1542-1075 1,716 3.4

 

13. Khost: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 23,086 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 7 Kamal Naser Osoli 14-1541-88 7,758 9.7 2 11 Engineer Helmand Helmand 14-1593-47 4,438 5.6 3 12 Dr Muhammad Musa Khawarin 14-1001-92 4,202 5.3 4 17 Ghaffar Khan 14-1637-2 4,127 5.2 5 22 Sahera Sharif 14-1505-17 2,561 3.2

 

14. Kunar: has four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 23,577 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 5 Jawid Sapai 15-1437-1006 6,909 8.4 2 19 Ustad Neamatullah Karyab 15-1273-6 6,326 7.7 3 24 Ziaurahman Kashmir Khan 15-1665-1024 6,036 7.3 4 8 Wazhma Sapai 15-1233-5 4,306 5.2

 

15. Nuristan: has two seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 2,761 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 1 Ismail Atikan 16-1297-19 2,271 16.4 2 7 Dr Omar Banu Akbari Nuristani 16-1606-1337-36 490 3.5

 

16. Badakhshan: has nine seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 54,450 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 51 Abdul Rauf Enami 17-1553-23 7,392 4.6 2 52 Abdul Shakur Waqef Hakimi 17-1585-6 7,060 4.4 3 41 Hujatullah Kheradmand 17-1461-78 6,598 4.2 4 72 Abdul Wali Neyazi 17-1233-47 6,524 4.1 5 23 Mawlawi Zabiullah Attiq 17-1445-46 5,707 3.6 6 69 Fazl Azem Zalmai Mujaddedi 17-1169-15 5,589 3.5 7 18 Dr. Ahmad Zia Yaftali 17-1313-12 5.508 3.5 8 69 Nilofar Ibrahimi 17-1537-10 6,717 4.2 9 13 Sadeqa Adib 17-1477-79 3,355 2.1

 

17. Takhar: has nine seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 67,724 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 1 Abdullah Bek 18-1141-4 13,818 7.9 2 4 Rais Abdul Baqi Malekzada 18-1050-257 8,469 4.8 3 15 Muhammad Alem Sa’i 18-1094-24 7,762 4.4 4 46 Engineer Amir Muhammad Khaksar 18-1429-13 6,985 4.0 5 5 Ghulam Sarwar Sadat 18-1274-18 6,835 3.9 6 52 Dr Sayyed Ashrafuddin Aini 18-1225-3 6,767 3.9 7 12 Dr Hamiduddin Yoldash 18-1269-10 6,380 3.6 8 61 Habiba Danesh 18-1339-87 5,817 3.3 9 20 Nazifa Yusufi Bek 18-1009-79 4,891 2.8

 

18. Kunduz: has 9 seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 16,378 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 62 Al Hajj Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi 19-1265-30 2,986 5.7 2 21 Engineer Kamal Safi 19-1185-43 2,276 4.4 3 32 Shah Khan Shirzad 19-1142-9 1,996 3.8 4 31 Engineer Muhammaduddin Hamdard 19-1141-13 1,905 3.6 5 2 Muhammullah Batash 19-1273-8 1,699 3.3 6 13 Haji Muhammad Omar Khan 19-1553-42 1,631 3.1 7 49 Fazel Karim Aimaq 19-1149-35 1,586 3.0 8 5 Nilofar Jalali Kufi 19-1161-47 1,257 2.4 9 67 Dr Fatema Aziz 19-1226-56 1,042 2.0

 

19. Samangan: has four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 27,681 votes (http://www.iec.org.af/results/en/home/final_leadingcandidates_results/20).

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 28 Hayatullah Samangani 20-1685-1020 9,256 12.2 2 23 Makhdum Abdullah Muhammadi 20-1418-1 9,000 11.8 3 25 Ziauddin Zia 20-1241-2030 6,261 8.2 4 3 Ustad Mahbuba Rahmat 20-1185-1006 3,164 4.2

 

20. Balkh: has 11 seats including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 97,727 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 68 Ghullam Abbas Ibrahimzada 21-1185-10 17,543 9.0 2 2 Ahmad Shah Ramazan 21-1329-1 11,238 5.8 3 74 Alam Khan Azadi 21-1074-27 10,448 5.4 4. 43 Abdul Hamid Sharifi 21-1141-9 10,148 5.2 5 36 Sayyed Zaher Masrur 21-1306-3 10,030 5.2 6 65 Muhammad Ali Mohaqeq 21-1118-4 9,683 5.0 7 58 Gul Rahman Hamdard 21-1273-58 9,598 4.9 8 53 Rais Abdul Khaleq 21-1257-28 9,486 4.9 9 47 Saifura Nayazi 21-1049-81 3,377 1.7 10 15 Fawzia Hamidi 21,1250-64 3,157 1.6 11 52 Breshna Rabi 21-1150-78 3,019 1.6

 

21. Sar-e Pul: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 34,621 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 13 Muhammad Akbari Sultanzada 22-1185-1 9,242 12.1 2 20 Sayyed Muhammad Hassan Sharifi Balkhabi 22-1094-16 7,358 9.7 3 31 Al Hajj Hamidullah Bek 22-1297-72 6,260 8.2 4 3 Haji Sayyed Hayatullah Alemi 22-1417-91 5,746 7.5 5 32 Aziza Jalis 22-1305-22 6,015 7.9

 

22. Ghor: has six seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 57,361 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 8 Muhammad Ibrahim Malekzada 23-1441-56 19,438 17.5 2 12 Atta Muhammad Dehqanpur 23-1094-12 11,828 10.6 3 19 Keramuddin Rezazadah 23-1605-59 8,823 7.9 4 17 Gul Zaman Naib 23-1329-89 8,131 7.3 5 5 Fatema Kohestani 23-1541-1 5,247 4.7 6 28 Ruqia Nail 23-1581-4 3,894 3.5

 

23. Daikundi: has four seats including one female seat (two female MPs have been elected from Daikundi this time). The elected candidates represent a total of 46,705 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 15 Sayyed Muhammad Daud Naseri 24-1441-6 13,055 9.7 2 35 Raihana Azad 24-1297-16 12,680 9.4 3 3 Ali Akbar Jamshidi 24-1581-41 10,490 7.8 4 4 Shirin Mohseni 24-1325-65 10,480 7.8

 

24. Uruzgan: has three seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 3,367 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 6 Besmellah Jan Muhammad 25-1593-33 1,420 11.4 2 7 Qudratllah Rahimi 25-1313-24 1,394 11.2 3 12 Bibi Gulalai Muhammadi 25-1601-1 553 4.4

 

25. Zabul: has three seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 3,767 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 5 Abdul Qader Qalatwal 26-1461-2 1,825 14.1 2 15 Hamidullah Tokhi 26-1593-5 1,458 11.2 3 6 Zahra Tokhi 26-1273-7 484 3.7

 

26. Kandahar: has 11 seats including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 50,797 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 52 Sayyed Muqtada Miran 27-1387-10 7,282 4.6 2 95 Dr Mahmud Khan Nasrat 27-1197-41 6,377 4.1 3 53 Rohullah Khanzada 27-1009-57 6,312 4.0 4 82 Haji Sayyed Ahmad Khadem 27-1329-15 5,700 3.6 5 1 Gul Ahmad Kamin 27-1177-21 5,118 3.3 6 104 Sayyed Ahmad Silab 27-1010-16 4,120 2.6 7 29 Khalil Ahmad Mujahed 27-1401-20 3,967 2.5 8 19 Engineer Muhammad Aref Nurzai 27-1561-34 3,893 2.5 9 48 Freba Ahmadi Kakar 27-1541-2 3,500 2.2 10 31 Malalai Ishaqzai 27-1232-70 2,826 1.8 11 36 Parwin Nama 27-1577-62 1,702 1.1

 

27. Jawzjan has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 35,691 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 6 Haji Batur Dostum 28-1141-1030 20,045 36.0 2 15 Batash Ishchi 28-1441-3 6,818 12.2 3 12 Muhammad Karim Jawzjani 28-1397-11 4,159 7.5 4 23 Azizullah Ulfati 28-1437-1025 3,515 6.3 5 28 Halima Sadaf Karimi 28-1505-17 1,154 2.1

 

28. Faryab: has nine candidates including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 30,360 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 5 Hashmatullah Arman 29-1541-1007 8,772 12.7 2 53 Muhammad Rasul Faryabi 29-1226-2033 4,166 6.0 3 14 Sanjar Kargar 29-1141-2015 3,563 5.2 4 11 Muhammad Hashem Khan 29-1545-3 3,466 5.0 5 50 Sayyed Babur Jamal 29-1505-2034 3,174 4.6 6 59 Muhammad Shaker Karimi 29-1334-2038 3,064 4.4 7 62 Rangina Kargar 29-1329-2014 1,519 2.2 8 55 Shafiqa Sakha Yulchi 29-1346-2026 1,355 2.0 9 46 Al Hajj Fawzia Raufi 29-1005-2 1,281 1.9

 

29. Helmand has eight seats including two for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 19,792 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 12 Muhammad Zafar Sadeqi 30-1034-19 4,038 5.3 2 65 Haji Ghulam Wali Afghan 30-1194-24 3,267 4.3 3 2 Mirwais Khadem 30-1309-32 3,084 4.1 4 60 Al Hajj Muhammad Karim Atal 30-1092-26 2,651 3.5 5 4 Abdul Rashid Azizi 30-1545-5 2,494 3.3 6 85 Shir Muhammad Akhundzada 30-1022-39 2,317 3.1 7 21 Nasima Nayazi 30-1174-29 1,320 1.7 8 75 Shegufa Nurzai 30-1685-83 621 0.8

 

30. Badghis: four seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 14,572 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 10 Zaiuddin Akazai 31-1142-2 4,575 10.4 2 13 Abdul Basir Osmani 31-1333-29 4,509 10.3 3 8 Amir Shah Naibzada 31-1185-64 4,162 9.5 4 12 Ustad Farida Bekzad 31-1441-35 1,326 3.0

 

31. Herat: has 17 seats including five for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 116,569 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 110 Habiburrahman Pedram 32-1469-1137 16,835 5.2 2 144 Muhammad Reza Khushak Watandost 32-1329-4 16,275 5.1 3 51 Omar Naser Mujaddedi 32-1405-1092 10,896 3.4 4 154 Haji Muhammad Sadeq Qaderi 32-1141-26 9,663 3.0 5 92 Ghulam Faruq Majruh 32-1161-6 7,027 2.2 6 142 Ustad Hamidullah Hanif 31-1317-1128 6,950 2.2 7 8 Munawar Shah Bahaduri 32-1441-10 6,811 2.1 8 40 Haji Shahpur Popal 32-1257-1075 6,549 2.0 9 161 Sayyed Azem Keberzani 32-1105-1118 6,517 2.0 10 105 Qazi Nazir Ahmad Hanifi 32-1074-46 5,963 1.9 11 113 Al Hajj Ghulam Faruq Nazari 32-1074-46 5,963 1.9 12 128 Sayyed Taha Sadeq 32-1081-1096 5,729 1.8 13 45 Rahima Jami 32-1078-1064 3,118 1.0 14 44 Masuda Karokhi 32-1225-1123 2,824 0.9 15 130 Nahid Ahmadi Farid 32-1461-17 1,957 0.6 16 30 Simin Barakzai 32-1249-1110 1,665 0.5 17 115 Shahnaz Ghawsi 32-1685-1068 1,662 0.5

 

32. Farah: has five seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 8,524 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes %

  1 17 Humayun Shahidzada 33-1397-26 2,457 9.7 2 37 Abdul Satar Hussaini 33-1305-4 1,859 7.4 3 11 Abdul Nasir Farahi 33-1541-1 1,642 6.5 4 40 Abdul Ghaffar Arman 33-1505-16 1,468 5.8 5 39 Belqis Roshan 33-1142-15 1,098 4.4

 

33. Nimruz: has two seats including one female seat. The elected candidates represent a total of 12,148 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 11 Gul Ahmad Nurzad 34-1033-16 5,812 18.8 2 9 Farida Hamidi 34-1390-6 6,336 20.5

 

34. Kuchis: there are ten Kuchi seats, including three for women. The elected candidates represent a total of 49,033 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 37 Al Hajj Shah Wazir Tarakhel 35-1231-77 21,738 32.7 2 26 Habib Rahman Afghan 35-1185-61 5,148 7.7 3 21 Mirwais Hussiankhel 35-1780-1100 4,671 7.0 4 25 Nangyalai Lawang 35-1687-23 4,147 6.2 5 5 Haji Parwiz Arabzada 35-1687-90 3,629 5.5 6 17 Al Hajj Haidar Jan Naimzoi 35-1186-15 3,270 4.9 7 11 Rasul Khan Kuchi 35-1439-17 2,853 4.3 8 31 Hamida Ahmadzai 35-1585-85 1,940 2.9 9 9 Mariam Sulaimankhel 1-1080-172 839 1.3 10 1 Farzana Kuchi 35-1672-151 798 1.2

 

35. Sikh: there is one seat reserved for the Hindu and Sikh communities in a country-wide constituency. The elected candidate has a total of 303 votes.

No Ballot No Candidate Name Candidate No Votes % 1 1 Narender Singh Khalesa 1-1217-259 303 100.0

 

 

 

 

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The European Defence Agency’s (EDA) ministerial Steering Board met this Tuesday afternoon under the chairmanship of the Head of the Agency, Federica Mogherini. Defence ministers discussed the Head of Agency’s report on the implementation of EDA’s long-term review and of the statute of the Agency agreed in 2015. They also tasked EDA to pursue its work in key research and capability development domains. In the margins of the meeting, a new military mobility programme on cross-border movement permissions was signed. 
 

Implementation of EDA’s long-term review and the 2015 Council decision  

Ministers welcomed the presentation by the Head of Agency of the report on the implementation of the conclusions and recommendations of EDA’s long term review (LTR, endorsed in May 2017) which reinforced EDA’s mission on three aspects: as the main intergovernmental prioritisation instrument at EU level in support of capability development; as the preferred cooperation forum and management support structure at EU level to engage in technology and capability development activities; and as a central operator with regard to EU funded defence-related activities and military voice in wider EU polices. In parallel to the implementation of the Council decision of 2015, the LTR adjustments allowed EDA to adapt to the fast-changing European defence landscape and the new requirements stemming from the EU defence initiatives that followed the 2016 EU Global Strategy: CARD, PESCO, European Defence Fund.   

Reflecting the Head of Agency’s report, Ministers acknowledged the important support role EDA plays in the implementation of these initiatives as well as in ensuring coherence among them. They tasked the Agency to continue its coordination with the European External Action Services (EEAS including EU Military Staff), the EU Military Committee and the European Commission in their respective areas of responsibility, and to pursue coherence of output and avoidance of unnecessary duplication with NATO. 
The Steering Board agreed to revert to the review of the 2015 Council decision on EDA’s statute, seat and operational rules in 2020.
 

Implementation of EDA’s key taskings and next steps

Ministers were also provided with a comprehensive update on the progress made in the numerous technology and capability development activities currently underway in the Agency. It shows that EDA manages a constantly growing number of projects and programmes which is set to even further increase in the future, also as a result of Member States’ request for support on PESCO projects. 

Among the many research and technology domains in which EDA is active, a particular emphasis was put on Artificial intelligence (AI). In order to better understand the potential future military applications of AI, Ministers agreed on a two-step approach. The first phase will see the creation of a specific EDA cross-Directorate ad-hoc team which will develop a “AI Definition, Taxonomy and Glossary Document”, as well as increased collaboration with EU stakeholders (especially the Commission) and the launch of an Innovation Prize in the area of AI. The second step, later this year, will consist of in-depth analyses of concrete AI defence applications in areas where capability gaps exist.
Ministers also welcomed the Agency’s contribution to the identification of initial lessons related to the 2018 revision of the Capability Development Plan (CDP), the CARD Trial Run, the first PESCO projects and the Preparatory Action on Defence Research. These lessons identified should be reflected and taken into account, as appropriate, in the further development of the defence initiatives, it was stressed. 

The Steering Board also asked the Agency to pursue the implementation of the 2018 EU Capability Development Priorities through robust and output-driven Strategic Context Cases (SCCs). EDA was asked to present to Capability Directors in June 2019 for endorsement the landscaping part of the SCCs, including their avenues of approach to tackle the capability shortfalls and lack of coherence in the European defence landscape, in order to inform the further implementation of the EU defence initiatives. The Agency was also invited to present to the Steering Board in February 2020 detailed roadmaps with objectives and milestones for those activities that, subject to the necessary ad-hoc decisions by Member States, could be taken forward in the Agency framework. 
 

Military Mobility

In the margins of the Steering Board, ministers also signed the new EDA programme on “Optimising cross border movement permission in Europe” (see related news here). The programme aims at decreasing the administrative burden for military movement in the framework of the Agency’s work on military mobility.

 

EDA press contacts:

Elisabeth SCHOEFFMANN
Head of Media & Communication
elisabeth.schoeffmann@eda.europa.eu
T+32 470 87 01 65

Helmut BRULS
Media & Communications Officer
helmut.bruls@eda.europa.eu
T+32 2 504 28 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the margins of today’s EDA Steering Board, 23 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden) and EDA signed a new programme that will facilitate the granting of cross-border surface and air movement permissions. The programme is developed in the framework of EDA’s work on military mobility. It implements an important part of the ‘Action Plan on Military Mobility’ which was presented by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) and the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council in March 2018. Military mobility is also highlighted in the EU-NATO Joint Declaration signed in Warsaw in 2016.

The purpose of the programme signed today is to harmonise different national regulations of the participating Member States. It should allow Member States to reduce the administrative burden associated with different permission procedures and thus significantly shorten the timelines for granting surface and air cross border movement permissions. The programme provides the basis for important activities at technical and procedural level to develop the necessary arrangements for cross border movement per transport mode during crises, preparations for crises, training and day-to-day business. The arrangements cover surface (road, rail and inland waterways) and air movements (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, fighter aircraft or helicopters). They are expected to be finalised in 2020. 

“Military mobility is about improving the movement of military personnel and assets across and beyond the EU. The high number of Member States participating in this new programme on cross-border movement permissions shows the need to alleviate the administrative burden while fully respecting the sovereignty of Member States”, said Jorge Domecq, EDA’s Chief Executive.
 

Military mobility

Military mobility covers the movement of military personnel and assets from one place to another, including crossing borders by using different modes of transport. The latter is of utmost importance for multinational operations. The capacity to ensure a smooth, efficient and effective movement of military personnel and assets across and beyond the European Union (EU) will enhance the EU’s preparedness and response to crises. It will enable EU Member States to act faster, in line with their defence needs and responsibilities, both in the context of Common Security and Defence Policy missions and operations, and in the framework of national and multinational activities.  
 

EDA’s role in the implementation of the Action Plan

EDA is committed to supporting its Member States. The ‘Action Plan on Military Mobility’ builds upon the ‘Roadmap on Military Mobility’ developed by an EDA expert working group which was set up on request of the EDA Member States in September 2017. In addition to the programme on cross border movement permission, the Agency support to Member States comprises another programme on harmonising of military requirements in the customs domain as well as surveys on transportation of dangerous goods and other legal aspects.
 

Further information:

• Factsheet on Military Mobility

 

EDA press contacts: 

Elisabeth SCHOEFFMANN
Head of Media & Communication
elisabeth.schoeffmann@eda.europa.eu
T+32 470 87 01 65

Helmut BRULS
Media & Communications Officer
helmut.bruls@eda.europa.eu
T+32 2 504 28 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

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