Defence`s Feeds

Where Paktika has been famous for ballot stuffing and mass proxy voting in previous elections, locals claim that this election was very different. A softer Taleban stance and a new slate of candidates, they say, allowed for more extensive campaigning. And the new electoral measures prevented rigging which, as a result, the electorate – including women – came out to vote. Reports of irregularities were indeed limited, with the exception of a large pre-election scam that involved thousands of duplicated tazkeras and led to several arrests. Turnout, as in most provinces, was varied and, in total, was given as around 20 per cent of registered voters. AAN’s Fazal Muzhary observed the election in this southeastern province and explains how it went before, during and after election day.

Interesting and new candidates

Paktika, with a population of close to 1.5 million people, has four seats in the Afghan parliament: three for men and one for women representatives. (1) A total of 30 candidates ran for these seats, eight women and 22 men (see the candidate list here). Three were incumbent candidates, Mahmud Khan Sulaimankhel, Nader Khan Katawazai and Najia Babakarkhel Urgunwal; the rest were new contenders, although a few had also run in the 2010 election. The new candidates included Muhammad Mirza Katawazai, a rich businessman living in Kabul who is originally from one of Paktika’s more peaceful districts, Yahyakhel. He claims to be the fifth-richest man in the country. According to his campaigners, Mirza registered 500 million US dollars as his net assets at the Independent Election Commission (IEC). Though his claim of being the fifth-richest man in the country can be questioned, he may well be the richest in his province.

The population mainly consists of Pashtuns whose tribal structures are largely still functional. Apart from this, there are Tajik enclaves in the provincial capital Sharana and the second-largest town, Urgun, in the southeast of the province. Paktika came into being as a separate province relatively late, under President Daud (1973–78). Therefore, the sense of belonging in the three sub-regions is still relatively strong: (a) the northern-central zone with the districts of Matakhan, Sarhauza, Sharana, and Yusofkhel, which are mainly dominated by the Andar, Kharoti, Alikhel and Sulaimankhel tribes; (b) the southeast along the border with Pakistan with the districts of Urgun, Gomal, Barmal, Gian, Zeruk and Sarobi, dominated by Dzadran and Wazir – both had belonged to the old ‘Greater Paktia’ – and (c) the southwest which had formerly belonged to Ghazni province, known as Katawaz and mainly inhabited by the large Sulaimankhel tribe (districts: Zarghunshahr/Khairkot, Khushamand, Tarwa, Wazakhwa, Wormamey, Omna). The government has a strong presence around the provincial capital, Sharana, and in Matakhan, Yusofkhel, Khairkot, Yahyakhel and Urgun districts. Apart from those five districts, the Taleban fully control Nika and Omna and have varying degrees of control and presence in the rest of the districts, particularly in southern Katawaz.

The thirty candidates in Paktika were mainly from six tribes. Sulaimankhel was the leading tribe, with seven candidates; Kharoti was second, with five candidates. The Pashtun tribes of Alikhel and Dzadran as well as the Tajiks had three candidates each and the Andar tribe had two candidates. The other ten candidates included the eight female candidates who were mostly not originally from Paktika. They were either married to husbands from Paktika, or for some reason had tazkeras from the province (only one female candidate is originally from Paktika: Suraya Akbari, who is Andar by tribe and from Matakhan district). The other women candidates included Maryam Zurmati, who according to local people is originally from Zurmat district in Paktia, and a female candidate who claims in her biography, (see the biography here) to be Alikhel. Local people say she is not from Paktika and can hardly speak Pashto; some claim she is Tajik from one of the northern provinces.

The Taleban’s softer policy gave space for campaigning

Local people, including civil society activists, journalists, and businessmen, told AAN that this year’s parliamentary election was interesting and different from the previous ones. In previous elections, residents of the central zone did not see much campaigning by candidates. One of the major reasons was insecurity, based on a widespread Taleban presence and the fear of attacks. A local journalist, Abdul Bari, told AAN that in previous elections, candidates had difficulty finding campaign offices: “If a person would rent his house to a candidate, the next day he would receive a call from the Taleban who would threaten to kill the house owner.” Therefore, no one wanted to rent out their houses as candidate campaign offices.

Previously, Taleban fighters not only warned ordinary voters in the rural areas against casting their votes, they also prevented local radios from publishing advertisements of candidates. One local journalist, who has worked at Pashtun Ghazh (Pashtun Voice) Radio for more than ten years, told AAN, “In the past we could not broadcast a single candidate advertisement. If we did, the next day Taleban fighters would inquire why we did that.” In this year’s election, he said, local radio stations broadcasted campaign adverts and conducted several roundtables without much of a reaction. Once local people and candidates grew confident that there seemed to be no serious threats, they tried to benefit from the opportunity.

Candidates visited many of the district centres and large villages in all three zones of Paktika, sometimes even in large convoys (see for example this video). Local people told AAN that the candidates paid visits to 11 out of the 19 districts during their campaigns and sent their representatives to remote districts where the candidates could not go. The candidates even gathered people in remote desert areas and paid visits to different districts in the evenings – a riskier time to travel, but better for campaigning as people can gather in village mosques and local bazaars. For many of Paktika’s residents it was their first experience of an actual electoral campaign in their own area.

The richest candidates organised cricket tournaments and educational competitions between schools with big prizes. For example, Muhammad Mirza, the richest candidate from Yahyakhel district, sponsored a cricket tournament in Sharana city before the election where the winning team received a car. Muhammad Daud Katawazai gave a motorbike to the winning team of another cricket tournament. In the educational competitions, participants who wrote good poems or correctly answered questions about the books they had read received money as a gift. Both candidates invited musicians from Kabul and held music nights, which according to local journalists were popular, particularly with the youth. Muhammad Daud Katawazai even paid a musician from Jalalabad to compose a campaign song for him, which plays in the background here. This kind of campaign, people said, had not be seen in Paktika in any of the previous elections.

Before the election, residents of all three zones – central, eastern and western – recounted how the Taleban had left prospective voters largely alone, whereas in previous elections Taleban fighters would tell people not to cast their votes. One resident who lives about six kilometres to the north of Sharana city told AAN, “In our mosque the Taleban told people that if anyone would cast his or her vote, they would cut their fingers.” This year, he said, no such threats had been reported prior to the election.

After the election, a journalist who did not want to be named said: “If the Taleban had wanted to disrupt the election, they could have easily done it. If they had made a single call to any of these voters, I am sure we would not have seen such long lines of voters in Sharana.” In the end the Taleban did try to disrupt the election in certain areas, mainly through shelling (see below); the impact was limited.

Reactions to the Taleban’s softer policy

Local journalists and civil society activists said they did not know the exact motives behind the softer policy of the Taleban or whether some of the candidates or local officials had made deals with the Taleban. Some thought the general talk about a possible peace might have prompted them not to want to disturb the vote. Walid Alikhel, an observer of one candidate, thought the Afghan security forces had become stronger. He said security forces had been deployed to all places where the election was planned and had pushed the Taleban to areas from where they could not easily reach the cities or attack the polling centres. A civil society activist said he thought the Taleban had simply not seriously wanted to disrupt the election. His argument was that if Taleban fighters had wanted to target polling centres, they could have fired rockets in almost all districts of the province, or sent suicide attackers, and the Afghan government would not have been able to prevent it.

He thought they had two possible reasons for not wanting to attack. First, since the media did a lot of campaigning in favour of the election process, saying it was a civilian process, the Taleban fighters might have realised that their attacks would mostly harm civilians and may have decided to refrain. The second reason, he said, could have been a more general policy of the Taleban to not seriously target the elections (although looking at some other provinces that does not seem to have been the case; see for instance this AAN report about Kunduz and this report about Zurmat district in neighbouring Paktika).

According to local journalist Dad Muhammad, the Taleban fighters in Paktika have simply not been very active recently and have rarely been conducting attacks against government forces. He said the most recent attack had been on Khushamand (also known as Dela) district, a week before the election. Beside that, there had not been any major attack by Taleban fighters in the province since August 2017, when they carried one out on Gomal district. The major reason, he said, was that Taleban fighters had been busy in neighbouring Ghazni province.

Election day in Paktika

Election day in Paktika appeared to go relatively smoothly. Although some polling centres opened late or suffered technical or logistical problems, this seemed to have been less prevalent than in other provinces. Paktika was one of the few provinces where the IEC did not call for a second day of voting. Harun Bawar, the provincial director of the IEC, said that most centres in the province had started operating on time, at 7:00 am. Some centres, he said, opened one or two hours late and only one polling centre, in Ali Baz in Urgun district, had started operating after 12:00 pm (because, he said, the voter list did not arrive on time).

Local reporter Rahim Khushhal, however, told AAN that additional centres had started operating late. He gave the example of Al Jehad High School, in Sharana, where voting started around 11:00 am. AAN also learned that some polling centres opened late in Yusofkhel, Yahyakhel and Khairkot districts. Other journalists spoke about centres that had not opened at all, but could not give exact names. After election day, the IEC official said that all 166 centres across the province had been open, but local journalists found that difficult to believe.

Later, it turned out that, according to voters and observers, local IEC officials had given false reports to the IEC officials in Sharana, telling them that the centres had started working on time when this had not been the case. For this reason, their seniors hadn’t seen a need to either extend the time of voting or allow certain centres to be open for voters on the second day. “We were either intentionally ignored or local IEC workers were negligent,” one voter, Zamir Khan in Yahyakhel told AAN over the telephone.

Observing the vote in Sharana, the provincial capital

AAN observed the opening of the election process at the Ali Baba High School, one of the 16 polling centres in Sharana. Voting started on time at 7:00 am. Voters’ turnout was low in the beginning, but later increased as people started casting their votes at nine stations (seven for men, one for women and one for Kuchi voters). Based on the voter lists AAN has seen, 3,800 voters (of whom 226 were Kuchi and 25 women) had registered at this centre. The long line of menwaiting to cast their votes, numbering in the hundreds, continued until midday. After that, the lines became smaller. In two stations in this polling centre, the process started with a small technical problem when the biometric machine did not start properly, but this was resolved in about 30 minutes. At this centre people could cast their votes in three to five minutes; only rarely did voters spend ten minutes or more. But because so many voters turned up, some had to wait for more than two hours. Based on AAN’s observation of the logbook at the end of the day, roughly 1,800 voters – including 16 Kuchis and 12 women – had cast their votes at this centre (a little less than half of the voters who had registered here). The main problem observed was that some voters could not find their names on the voter list.

At a second polling centre, in the provincial hospital in Sharana, AAN also observed a considerable turnout. Here, 2,247 voters had been registered, among them 534 women and 75 Kuchis. They could cast their votes at five stations. Voting started without problem and AAN did not see any irregularities, except again of people not finding their names on the list. At the end of the day, 887 voters (654 men, 230 women and three Kuchis) had cast their votes – around 40 per cent of those registered.

At Yusofkhel High School (where 1,900 voters were registered, among them 150 women), around 820 voters, including 30 women, had already cast their votes by the time AAN visited in the early afternoon. Similarly, at Khushhal Baba High School in Mushkhel district, AAN observed a polling centre where 830 out of the 1,900 registered voters had cast their votes by the afternoon. Local observers at both centres said they did not see any problems on election day.

At one of the polling centres in Sharana city, AAN saw a large number of women waiting in front of a tent for their turn. Once inside, the women generally spent two to five minutes casting their votes. The female candidate observers said they did not see any problems at this station. A female IEC worker who had also worked in previous elections told AAN that women’s participation was much higher than in the past. In previous elections, very few women showed up, but in this year’s polling, she said that, as soon as the voting started at her centre, within an hour, dozens of women had shown up. At this female station, AAN observed that, by the afternoon, 230 out of 534 registered female voters had cast their votes.

At all four centres visited by the AAN observer, voters said they were happy to take part in the election and to vote for their representatives. The voters included men and women, youth, elders, teachers, students, journalists, members of the security forces and Kuchis. One voter who did not want to be named said that in the past there had been many security problems, but this year, security was good and that allowed people to take part in the election. As many women had difficulty coming to vote from areas far from the polling centres, some villagers voluntarily used their cars to drive women to the city so they could cast their votes. Walid Ahmad, one of the volunteers, who drove several voters to the provincial hospital, told AAN: “We drove these women here only to help them cast their votes for their favourite candidate. No one has paid us to do this.”

A high level of participation in and around the capital and in the central zone

Talking to AAN during the election as well as on the day after the election, local journalist Yasin said he thought the introduction of the biometric system had been an important factor in increasing voter participation, as it had built people’s confidence that there would be less rigging. Because most candidates realised there would be no (or less) chance for fraud, they tried harder to campaign. As a result, ordinary people understood the significance of the election. This, he said, in particular affected women’s participation, because candidates had encouraged their tribes to let the women vote too. Where previously men would often cast votes on behalf of their female family members and relatives, this year women came out and cast their own votes.

People told AAN that the number of women who voted at many centres in Sharana, Yusofkhel, Urgun and some other districts could not be compared to previous elections. Local journalist Obaid told AAN that in Mest area of Yusofkhel district, women were casting their votes until late evening. According to a member of civil society who visited polling centres in five different districts, many men had voted in the morning, but the number of women was less. But in the afternoon, he said, the number of women increased and they came to cast their votes until late in the evening. Talking to AAN, he said that he had also witnessed considerable numbers of women voters in Khairkot and Yahyakhel districts. He said that because security was good, most candidates had observers in most of the polling centres. Therefore, he thought, most districts saw no ballot stuffing, even though many  had been previously known for it. For example, he said, in the previous election, ballot stuffing had been reported in Yahyakhel, Khairkot and Janikhel districts. “This year, we did not have a single report of ballot stuffing,” he said.

He also believed that changing the system from voting cards to stickers on people’s tazkeras – the new registration system that linked voters to polling centres (see previous AAN reporting here for details) – played a key role in people’s increased participation in the election. After this decision, the office for population registration started distributing new tazkeras in local villages. In several places in the central zone, as well as in districts close to the provincial capital, their workers went from house to house. Whereas in the past many families did not allow their women to go to the city to get a tazkera, this time they did not mind because it was distributed in front of their own houses. As a result, many women who had never had an identity document now got a tazkera and were able to vote.

Obaid also thought that the level of participation had been particularly high in the central zone – Sharana, Matakhan, Sarhauza and Yusofkhel – because people from this area had had no representative in the past two parliaments and had felt side-lined by the MPs from Katawaz and Urgun zones. According to civil society activist Elham, when people from the central zone needed help, they were mostly ignored, as the MPs from other zones did not care about the problems of people from the central zone. This, he said, was the main reason that ignored residents of the central zone decided to not only have candidates but also to actively participate in the election.

The election in the Katawaz (southwest) zone

The election in the southwest and southeast zones of Paktika generally went smoothly, although in several districts no or very little polling took place. In the Katawaz zone, elections took place in Khairkot, Yahyakhel, Janikhel, Tarwa, Wormamey and Wazakhwa districts, although in the Tarwa, Wormamey and Wazakhwa this was largely limited to the district centre due to limited government presence. In these districts, around five to 20 per cent of registered voters appeared to have cast their votes. Independent observers from civil society – who did not want to be named because they said attributing the figures to them could cause problems – said that in Khairkot, 3,125 out of 30,000 voters cast their votes (10 per cent); in Yahyakhel, 3,500 out of 20,000 (17.5 per cent); and in Janikhel, about 1,500 out of 30,000 (five per cent). In Janikhel, most of the votes were cast in Jalalzi village, where observers counted 900 votes. In Wazakhwa, around 750 votes were cast; in Tarwa, about 800 and in Wormamey, about 3,000. (Most of these figures are based on observers’ record of the tallies in the ballot books at the end of the day.) AAN was told that in all these districts, the presence of candidates’ observers was thought to have reduced the possibility of rigging, whereas in the past, they said, ballot stuffing had been widespread.

In Omna district, very few votes were cast. Polling took place at only one centre, where observers told AAN that only 60 votes were cast. This polling centre was in Ginawa area; the district compound was moved here in June 2016, after the district fell to the Taleban. In Khushamand district, there was no election at all. Around 800 voters had registered near the district compound, and local observers told AAN that the IEC had sent materials and staff, but the voters simply did not show up. The IEC head, Harun Bawar told AAN on the day after the election that in this district one vote only was cast (possibly one of the staff). Local observers told AAN that the lack of turnout was mostly because of a Taleban attack in Khushamand a week before the election. As many as 21 Taleban fighters and 14 security forces were killed in the attack.

Problems were reported in a polling centre Khairkot district, where observers had initially counted 3,125 votes but claimed that after IEC workers had interfered, the count went up to 4,600. In Janikhel, AAN was told that one candidate, Mahmud Khan Sulaimankhel, had taken people’s tazkeras in the nomination process and had not returned them after his nomination, which meant that these eligible voters could not cast their votes. In Yahyakhel, voters told AAN that the election started around 10:00 am due to problems with the biometric systems. One observer told AAN: “The IEC workers could not turn on the biometric machines. By the time the machine started, there were already hundreds of voters waiting in the queues, which resulted in many voters’ frustration.” Voters were unhappy that the IEC officials did not listen to their demand to extend the time for voting. Security officials apparently told IEC workers to stop working exactly at 4:00 pm, as they said they could not protect the centres beyond that time. Observers said this deprived a number of people from voting.

In Khairkot district, three polling stations allocated for Kuchi voters were closed on election day. Two of these stations were in Segana area and a third was at the district hospital. According to observers, Kuchi voters had registered at these centres but could not vote here. One observer told AAN, “The IEC workers told the Kuchi voters, that since so few Kuchis had registered, they could not open a separate polling stations for Kuchis.” Voters were told that wherever fewer than 100 voters were registered, no separate polling station would be open for Kuchis.

The election in the Urgun (southeast) zone

In the eastern zone of Urgun, local observers said there had been no election in Neka district. IEC officials told AAN that they sent all required materials to the district without any problem and that the polling centres had been open, while local observers said that no polling centres were open. In Gomal district there was only one polling centre, in the Shkin area, which borders the South Waziristan Agency of Pakistan. The main populated area, Chahrbaran, had no polling centre as it is currently under Taleban control. In Sarobi district, the election was disrupted by Taleban rocket shelling, but local observers said that 1,200 votes were cast in this district, despite the shelling. No problem was reported in Barmal district. Local observers thought that the fact that two candidates, Taj Ali Wazir and Admir Entezar, were active in the district was why no rigging had been reported.

In Gomal district, ballot stuffing was reported. Civil society activists told AAN that the ballots had already been stuffed before election day. When National Directorate of Security (NDS) operatives found out what had happened, they confiscated the stuffed boxes and arrested the IEC staff. In Zerok district, ballot stuffing was reported at the end of the election day. Observers found that the stuffing was in favour of Daulat Khan Dzadran. In Sarobi, observers told AAN that according to their observations 1,200 votes were cast during the day, but later the results showed more than 3,000 votes.

Security problems

The election took place in a relatively peaceful atmosphere. Four areas in the entire province had security-related incidents; there were casualties, but relatively few. These incidents included shelling by Taleban fighters in southeastern Sarobi, eastern Sarhauza, and northern Matakhan districts, and rockets fired at Omarkhel area in the southern part of Sharana. The rocket, fired in the afternoon of 20 October, killed one child and wounded a man. Two persons were wounded in the shelling in Sarobi district; one was an observer and the second a policeman. In Sarhauza, one policeman and a civilian were wounded. There were no casualties reported in the shelling that targeted some northern villages of Matakhan district. According to a local source who works with an NGO, people continued to go to the polling centres to cast their votes despite the shelling. There were no reports of Taleban fighters preventing voters from casting their votes, even in the remote districts where they could easily have done so.

The IEC figures and pre-election fraud

Based on IEC’s database, 186,611 eligible voters had registered during the voter registration process (see here). Out of those possible voters, IEC officials told AAN on 28 October 2018 that an estimated 38,000 people had cast their votes on election day. This represents around 20 per cent of the registered voters. The officials, however, stressed that these were rough estimations and could not be considered final, as they were based on reports from IEC workers from the sites. Some ballot boxes had yet to arrive at the provincial capital and the official count was still underway.

An IEC official said he thought it was possible that “a lot of ghost voters registered in the registration process and that only actual voters had shown up on election day.” ‘Ghost voters’, here, refers to registrations made that were not linked to actual people. Journalist Yasin had a different explanation, saying, “In the beginning, when several names were mismatching [people could not find their names on the voter list], this frustrated the people and affected voters’ participation.”

Another important explanation may be found in pre-election fraud that took place and that has remained largely unreported in the media (except some social media posts by local Facebook users). The fraud, which took place in May 2018, centred on the use of duplicate tazkeras, initially to bolster candidate registration, but later to try to increase the size of the vote banks.

When the Population Registration Department issues a tazkera, there are two original copies: one is given to the holder and the second is kept at the department. Local journalist Obaid and civil society activists told AAN that several candidates were able to buy large numbers of the originals kept at the registration department. Initially the tazkeras were used to meet the requirement for candidate application (1,000 tazkeras from supporters). Later, larger numbers were bought to ‘register’ additional voters. Initially, very few people knew about the ‘scheme’ and it was not considered a large problem, so no steps were taken to prevent it happening. When the numbers rose, NDS officials learned about it and arrested the Population Registration Department general director, Anwar Khan Katawazai, three PRD officials from the districts and three local IEC workers. They also confiscated an unknown number of tazkeras and an unknown amount of money. AAN was told that the candidates had paid several thousands of dollars, but the exact amount was not identified. (Some of the Facebook posts can be found here, here and here)

The candidates who bought original copies of the tazkeras from the PRD officials bribed local IEC officers in their districts to include the tazkeras in the voter lists and to provide them with the necessary registration stickers. In many cases, this resulted in a problem of duplication. The real holders of the tazkeras were registered in their own districts at their own polling centres, while the candidates often re-registered the same tazkeras in other districts. Most of these duplicates were taken from voters who registered in the central zone, possibly because candidates thought it would be easier to do the rigging in the absence of strong incumbent candidates. The duplicates were also most easily available here from the main PRD office in Sharana. According to local journalists, several of the candidates bought tazkeras in the process of candidate registration; but, in the process of voter registration only some influential and rich candidates were able to buy them.

After the PRD officials and IEC workers were arrested and sent to prison, the IEC officials decided to clear out the duplicated tazkeras. They removed 30,000 tazkeras from the voter database after filtering several thousand of them. This  resulted in the removal of large numbers of actual voters. As the IEC officials cancelled duplicated tazkeras, they were unable to decide which belonged to an actual voter and which was the ‘ghost’. As a result, many voters could not find their names on the voter list on election day, despite having actually registered, and were not able to vote.

Post-election problems

Some reports of problems came out after the election was completed in Paktika. On the day after the elections, Taleban fighters confronted voters in some districts and asked them why they had voted on election day. A local journalist told AAN he received a call from a local Taleban fighter in Kharbin area. “The Taleban fighter told me he would kill me if he found me outside Sharana city,” he said. When asked why the Taleban would threaten him after the election was over, he said, “They might have just intended to frighten people; otherwise, these threats after the election are meaningless.” In Matakhan district, Taleban fighters threatened teachers who had worked for the IEC on election day and told them they would beat them if they collected the money the IEC was supposed to pay.

IEC head Harun Bawar, confirming the Taleban threats, told AAN that teachers from Khairkot had indeed called him and told him they did not want to receive their pay, for fear of being beaten. In other places, sources told AAN, local Taleban told IEC workers to share the money they would receive from the IEC. There were also rumours that the Taleban wanted to punish IEC workers for their work. Some of the staff who went to Kharbin area to meet the Taleban, had reportedly been beaten.

Another problem was that one female candidate, Hila Mujtaba, accused the Paktika governor, Elyas Wahdat, of mistreating one of her observers at the governor’s house. Her observer, Zahir Khan, in a video report told Ariana News that the “governor personally beat me and put me in his private custody for five hours” (see the video here). In the same report, the governor’s spokesman, Muhammad Ayaz, rejected the accusations as baseless. He told an Ariana TV reporter: “There has been nothing done like this. We have rules and everything should go according to the rules.”

The third problem was that on 30 October 2018, the prosecutor’s office in Sharana detained five local reporters for publishing Mujtaba’s allegations. These journalists were detained for five hours at the prosecutor’s office. One local reporter, who did not want to be named, told AAN, “The prosecutor’s office people asked the journalists why they published the reports and said that they had crossed the privacy limits, but they did not explain whose privacy.” The reporters’ response was that they had published both the allegations and the reaction of the governor’s house and that this should have not been problematic. One of the detained journalists, elaborating on the threats they received at the prosecutor’s office, said: “They told us they would put their feet in our mouths and silence us forever.” Paktika’s governor, in a separate meeting with a group of journalists, told them he would ask the prosecutor’s office why the journalists had been detained for five hours.

Conclusion

The IEC’s move to address pre-election fraud resulted in the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters whose takers had been misused. It may also have scared away other voters. Similarly, the claims that all polling centres were open and opened on time meant that polling was not extended – into the evening or to a second day – as happened in most of the country. This may also have deprived voters of the opportunity to vote. Otherwise, the election, from local reports, appears to have gone relatively smoothly. There were some reports of ballot stuffing, rigging and interference, particularly in the remote areas. There were a few security incidents. Overall, however, the election appeared to have presented new opportunities: a new slate of candidates, campaigning where this had not happened before, tazkeras for people who had never had one before, and some actual turnout. Many voters and observers expressed cautious optimism over the quality of the election in their province. The preliminary results, once released and to the extent that they match what was observed on election day, will bring more clarity.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert and Thomas Ruttig

(1) Paktika’s provincial centre, Sharana (which is the north of the province), is located about 160 kilometres southeast of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul. It borders Zabul to the southwest, Ghazni to the west, Paktia to the north, Khost to the east and the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan to the south and southeast. The population figure of almost 1.5 million is based on the 2018 statistics of the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

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The Perimeter system was put in operation in the USSR in 1985. In a nutshell, the system ensures the automatic launch of nuclear missiles in case of a nuclear attack against Russia, even if there is no one left to be able to give such an order. All the available data about the work of the system is served with such words as "probably," "possibly," and so on. No one knows how the system works exactly. In general, the Perimeter is a form of artificial intelligence that evaluates a multitude of factors about a nuclear attack on the basis of information received from radar stations, space satellites, seismic activity, etc.

Nuclear-capable missiles will thus be launched from silos, mobile launchers, strategic aircraft, submarines to strike pre-entered targets, unless there is no signal from the command center to cancel the attack. In general, even though there is little information available about the work of the Perimeter, one thing is known for sure: the doomsday machine is not a myth at all - it does exist.

The specialist is convinced that the United States can easily destroy Russia's nuclear arms. Without the INF Treaty, the USA will be able to deploy as many ballistic missiles as possible in Europe. According to Yesin, the Americans will thus be able not only to destroy Russian nuclear weapons, but to intercept them if Russia launches missiles to retaliate. The attack led to a massive nuclear exchange between the two countries that caused irreparable damage to the two states and claimed the lives of more than 400 million people.

Russia must revise its nuclear doctrine as soon as possible.

Source : Pravda.ru

Tag: RussiaINF TreatyPerimeter

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The Eurofighter fleet has passed the 500,000 flying hours mark, an achievement celebrated by applying special markings to four jets of the four partner nations. The fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft has passed the 500K flying hours milestone, Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH confirmed today. “Passing the 500,000 flying hours milestone underscores the fact that today Eurofighter […]

Polish Air Force MiG-29 Fulcrums back in the air. On Nov. 5, 2018, at 2:36PM, MiG-29UBM ’28’ of the Polish Air Force took off for a mission which marked the end the suspension of the Polish Fulcrum operations. The operations of the jets were suspended due to the crash on Jul. 6. 2018, that turned […]

On 6 November, following a meeting at working level, the four Principals of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), the European Defence Agency (EDA), Europol and the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU Institutions, Agencies and Bodies (CERT-EU), met at CERT-EU's premises.

The purpose of the meeting was to update each other on relevant developments, and assess the progress made under the MoU, which provides a cooperation framework aiming at leveraging synergies between the four organisations to achieve a safe and open cyberspace and to promote civ/mil synergies. 

The four partners also agreed on a roadmap prepared by the MoU working group with concrete activities and deliverables throughout 2019, which will be reflected in their respective work programmes. 

The initial focus will be on working closer in the areas of training and cyber exercises, building the cooperation capacity and the improved exchange of information on respective projects and events with a view to complementing the work of the four partners and avoiding the duplication of efforts, considering also broader EU initiatives in the cyber domain. 
 

Ken Ducatel (CERT-EU), Udo Helmbrecht (ENISA), Steven Wilson (EC3), Jorge Domecq (EDA)

 
"Following the signature of this MoU in May, I am pleased that we swiftly moved to turn this into action. Our objective is to promote civ/mil synergies in the cyber domain, considering also relevant EU initiatives, to support Member States in the development of the cyber capabilities they need, building on complementarities and avoiding duplication", said Jorge Domecq, EDA Chief Executive.

The Principals agreed that this was a major milestone in entering a new era of working together and an important first step in putting the cooperation framework into practice.
 

More information:

• Four EU Cybersecurity organisations enhance cooperation (EDA news May 2018)

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Kunduz province faced serious security issues during and after Election Day. The turnout was far lower than expected. This was mainly due to an almost unprecedented level of Taleban violence compared to most other provinces on that day. Three districts were deprived of their rights to vote in their entirety, while six others had a patchy election as, due to the insecurity, some polling centres (PC) frequently kept opening and closing. AAN’s Obaid Ali, who observed the election in neighbouring Takhar, looks at the electoral challenges in this key province of Afghanistan’s northeast (with input from Thomas Ruttig).

Threats and Election Day violence

The parliamentary election on 20 October 2018 in Kunduz province suffered from serious security threats and acute violence. In the last two weeks prior to the elections, the Taleban leadership issued a series of four statements warning people not to take part in the election. In the first, issued on 8 October, they reiterated their April call for an election boycott. The next statement targeted specific groups of people warning them to avoid being involved in the election. On 17 October, they called on university professors, schoolteachers and others in the education sector not to support the elections process. The two following statements were even tougher; one by the preaching, guidance and recruitment commission, and one by the military commission. The first of these, issued on 18 October, called on tribal elders, religious scholars and mosque preachers to stand against the election and to prevent people from taking part. Ten, on 19 October on the eve of the elections, the military commission warned people to “do not allow your homes, guest rooms, schools, religious seminaries, clinics and workers be utilized by the organizers of this vile process.” It said the “intelligence teams of the Islamic Emirate” would be “closely monitoring all development” as a “participation in this process” would amount to “aiding the invaders.”

In Kunduz province itself, people have limited access to the internet and little awareness of the Taleban’s official statements. So, local Taleban officials delivered these statements and warnings directly to the people. In Dasht-e Archi and Qala-ye Zal districts, for example, which are areas under their control, the Taleban’s shadow district governors appeared in mosques during Friday prayers and announced the Taleban leadership’s position on the elections. In other Taleban controlled areas in Kunduz, their fighters individually talked with local elders and mosque preachers, asking them to prevent people from taking part in the elections.

During Election Day and the day after, the Taleban invested much energy in order to disrupt the polls. According to Rasul Omar, head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) for Kunduz, the Taleban fired mortars at polling centres (PC) in most parts of the province. In several PCs, he said, IEC workers fled to safe places because of the shelling. He told AAN “70 per cent of the total of [89] polling centres were under serious attacks by the Taleban.” He added, “Even inside the city we had serious security issues.” He said Taleban fired mortars against 20 of the 35 PCs that operated inside the city. Abdulbaqi Nuristani, the police chief for Kunduz province, told AAN that frequent mortar fire lasted from the early morning of the Election Day until late into the night.

Zabihullah Majedi, a parliamentary candidate in the province, is also the head of the Journalists Association there. He said more than 100 mortar rounds hit PCs in Kunduz city alone. He said the Taleban inflicted serious casualties on IEC workers and voters. According to him, 15 people were killed and 110 others were wounded in the city because of the shelling. Local journalists in Kunduz confirmed this range of election-related casualties. Rahmatullah Hamnawa, a journalist in Kunduz, told AAN he had recorded more than 120 casualties in Kunduz city. He added that this included police, IEC workers and civilians.

Kunduz was possibly the province most affected by Election Day violence issued by the Taleban. (1) In neighbouring Baghlan, 62 casualties were reported by local government officials, while in Kabul there were 79 election-related casualties reported.

Mursal Setayesh, a civil society activist in Kunduz, told AAN that, due to the Taleban’s mortar shelling, most women feared going out to cast their votes. She said that, apart from the insecurity, the IEC works also had technical difficulties that reduced the number of people who could vote and added “In many PCs voter registration lists were missing and people had to search different PCs to find their names in order to cast votes.” Therefore, she said many female voters left the PCs without casting votes. Speaking to AAN, Karima Sediqi, a female member of the provincial council in Kunduz, said female voters’ participation in this parliamentary election in Kunduz was lower than that in 2010. She added that insecurity was the major factor that reduced the female turnout in Kunduz city. Both Sediqi and Setayesh said the same was the case in the districts where men did not allow their female family members to go out to vote for security reasons.

The Taleban also mined roads. On 23 October 2018, when the author returned from Takhar and travelled through Kunduz, he noticed that parts of the main Takhar-Kunduz highway had been destroyed by explosive devices planted at the roadside during the election days. There were also burned out military vehicles and destroyed police checkpoints visible on that highway.

The Taleban’s ability to inflict a high level of Election Day violence has resulted from a badly deteriorating security situation in the province over recent years. Currently, the Taleban control three districts of Kunduz. In three more districts, the government presence is limited to the district centres and a few villages around the district governor’s compounds. In the remaining three, the government and the Taleban each hold almost half of the districts (read AAN’s previous analysis about security in Kunduz here and here).

Elections in Kunduz city

The parliamentary election in Kunduz city was held in a chaotic environment. There were fears immediately before Election Day that the Taleban might overrun the provincial centre for another time (read media report here). Most of the 35 PCs in the city were targeted by Taleban mortar and rocket fire.

According to journalist Hamnawa, many parliamentary candidates provided transportation for voters to get to PCs. He told AAN that the parliamentary candidates, together with their agents, frequently visited PCs to mobilise people to take part in the election. Speaking to AAN’s Farhad Nuri, a shopkeeper in Kunduz city, said most of the shops in the city ran out of mobile credit cards. “Candidates and their agents bought up all mobile credit cards to call people and to encourage them to vote.” Nevertheless, Hamnawa said, most people preferred to stay away from voting due to the threats and the violence on Election Day.

Impact on turnout

Provincial security officials confirmed that insecurity had caused serious challenges for people wishing to cast their votes. However, Police chief Nuristani told AAN that the Taleban had failed to disrupt the election. He said the security forces “managed to protect the PCs” and – counter-factually, given successful Taleban attacks on two PCs in Imam Saheb – that they “repelled the Taleban’s attacks.” Candidate Majedi added, “Despite of serious risks men and women came out to cast their votes.” Many locals, nevertheless, told AAN that most of the PCs across the province faced serious security challenges to their operation.

Also, the turnout figures from the districts, as suggested above, speak another language compared with the officially given figures and the security officials’ optimistic statements. The Taleban threats before and their attacks on Election Day meant voter turnout figures were much lower than expected – only between 32,000 to 35,000 people voted across the province, according to the Provincial Independent Election Commission (PIEC). (In the 2010 parliamentary election, some 115,000 votes in Kunduz were considered valid by the IEC.) (2) The official 2018 turnout figures represent between 18.8 and 20.6 per cent of the 169,802 registered voters, of whom men were 108,832, women 60,843 and Kuchis 127 (see IEC data for registered voters in Kunduz here), and only seven per cent of the estimated population in voting age. (The number of registered voters was only about 34 per cent of the voting age population; the total population of the province is 1,091,116, according to Afghanistan’s Central Statistic Office, see p25 here).

Of the official 32-35,000 voters, only 8,750 participated in the districts (plus possibly some few in Khanabad and Aqtash districts, but where the district governors refused to give figures). This is around one quarter of the provincial total, meaning that three quarters of the turnout came from Kunduz city.

Technical and organisational problems leading to more disenfranchisement

Apart from the insecurity and violence, technical issues and shortcomings of the provincial IEC workers were the other factors that negatively affected the turnout. Several local journalists in Kunduz told AAN that, in most of the PCs, voter registration lists were not available. This forced people to visit other polling centres in order for them to find their names and be able to vote. The use of the biometric voter verification devices and the lack of experience of the staff in handling them was another factor that meant casting a vote took a long time and resulted in long queues. Waiting for a long time in an insecure situation, and with frequent shelling, made many voters return home without casting their votes.

However, it has remained unclear how many ballot boxes and votes would be invalidated. Muhammad Sediq Samim, the head of the Kunduz Election Complaints Commission (ECC), told AAN that they had already suggested a recount of votes in some PCs in insecure areas. According to him, 239 complaints have been registered for reasons including: “manipulations, fraud, and IEC workers’ were campaigning for some specific candidates.” Samim also said that, in some PCs, there was some ballot box stuffing inside the city and in some districts, but he refused to give the exact locations. Observer organisations also have not been ready to share their findings with AAN thus far.

The ECC call for recounting might result in votes being invalidated in some Kunduz PCs. This would reduce the turnout figures that PIEC announced even further.

Election in Kunduz’s districts

Rasul Omar of the provincial IEC told AAN that voters in three districts, Qala-ye Zal, Gulbad and Gultepa, were not able to cast their votes. In Gulbad and Gultepa, there had been no voter registration at all due to insecurity (see here).

Further, Omar said 18 out of the total 54 PCs in the remaining six districts were closed and six other PCs, in Khanabad and Imam Saheb districts, only operated for half a day because of the Taleban’s intense attacks. This meant that 36 PCs – only two thirds of the total – opened in the districts, and some for only a part of the time. (In 2010, 8.4 per cent of all planned polling stations in Kunduz were reported closed on election day by the IEC, see AAN report here; no figures about polling centres available.)

The election did not take place in three out of a total of nine districts of Kunduz due to insecurity: Qala-ye Zal, Gulbad and Gultepa. AAN interviewed the governors of the six districts where elections were held to obtain an overview of the turnout (district population figures from the Central Statistics Office, p25 here and IEC voter registration figures here). The figures below, according to district governors, are the officially numbers taken from the PCs where the result sheets were published after counting. The final breakdown of the turnout will be released by IEC. AAN tried to corroborate these figures, but the independent election observer organisations declined to share their figures. None has officially published their reports as yet; and only the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA) held a press conference on 28 October.

Dasht-e Archi district

In Dasht-e Archi, a heavily contested district, the government presence is limited to the district governor’s compound and a few nearby villages. Therefore, the voters were either local government officials or those who live in the government-controlled areas.

Afghanistan’s Central Statistic Office (CSO) estimated the total population of Dasht-e Archi at 92,576 people. During the voter registration between May and June 2018, the IEC registered 9,277 people as voters; ten per cent of the population. The turnout, however, was far lower. According to Nasruddin Sahdi, the district governor, Taleban threats and a lack of sufficient training of the IEC workers to use biometric devices negatively affected the turnout. Speaking to AAN he said, Taleban targeted four PCs that operated in the district by shooting rockets and machine guns at them. Therefore, he said the turnout in the district was as low as 400 voters – this is only 4.3 per cent of the registered voters and less than one per cent of the voting age population. (3)

Chahrdara district

In Chahrdara, another contested district, to the west of Kunduz city, the government only controls a small part of the district centre. Therefore, the IEC had opened only one PC in the government-control area and this had remained closed until 11:00 am.

Turnout remained very low. According to district governor Zalmai Faruqi, the Taleban blocked most of the roads leading to district centre to prevent people from reaching the PC. He told AAN that the Taleban also fired mortars and rockets targeting the district centre. According to Faruqi, the number of voters was 450 people, ie 12.5 per cent of the registered voters and around one percent of the population in voting age. The total population of the district, according to CSO, is 80,196 people. The IEC had registered 3,598 voters, 4.4 per cent of the total population.

Aliabad district

In Aliabad, the government presence is larger compared to Dasht-e Archi and Chahrdara and they control almost half of the district. The CSO estimates its total population at 51,455 people. According to IEC data, 7,815 people were registered as voters. This is less than two thirds of the voting age population.

District governor Emamuddin Quraishi told AAN that the turnout was between 2,700 and 2,800 voters, ie 34.5 to 35.8 per cent of the registered voters and slightly over 20 per cent of the total voting age population. Quraishi said “Taleban fired mortar rounds and rockets against the PCs during the Election Day; most voters did not take a risk to get out and to cast their votes.” There were eight PCs in Aliabad, and six of them were open.

Imam Saheb district

Imam Saheb, another contested district in northern Kunduz, also faced serious security threats. The Afghan government controls almost half of it. The remaining half is either control by the Taleban or else is heavily contested by them. The CSO estimates its total population at 220,256 people. The IEC recorded a high number of registered voters, 41,147 people.

According to district governor Mu’in Saedi, the Taleban carried out attacks against PCs in several parts of the district. He told AAN that the Taleban overran two PCs, Ab Forushan primary school and Abdulrahman Turk primary school, and took away election materials, including biometric devices. A further three PCs, out of a total of 19, remained close because of insecurity. Saedi said the turnout was low, with between 4,000 and 5,000 voters. That would be between 9.9 and 12.1 per cent of the total registered voters (between 3.6 and 4.4 per cent of the total voting age population).

Khanabad district

Khan Abad is another example where the government’s presence is larger than the Taleban’s, but where there was a low turnout. The CSO estimated the population at 150,544 people, of which the IEC registered 22,840 people as voters (less than one third of the voting age population). During and after the Election Day the Taleban launched rockets and shot with machine guns at the district centre to disrupt the security. As a result, one PC remained close and two others, out of a total 14 PCs, operated for some hours only in the morning of the Election Day.

District governor Hayatullah Ameri told AAN that insecurity was the major factor that prevented many voters from casting their votes. He refused to share information on the number of voters. However, he said the turnout was “very low.”

Aqtash district

Aqtash is a newly established district largely controlled by the Taleban. The CSO gives a total population estimate of 26,629 people. The IEC registered 4,781 people as voters. According to district governor Zabihullah Aimaq, there were two PCs in the district and both operated on Election Day. Aimaq said there were “good elections” in his district. He refused to give further details about the turnout and security during the Election Day. Haji Fazel, a local from Aqtash, told AAN that, because of Taleban large presence in the district, most people did not take part in the election. He added that the two PCs were both located in government-control area.

Qala-ye Zal district

Qala-ye Zal had 2,583 voters registered by the IEC, but no election took place because of general insecurity and Taleban attacks against the district centre. As a result, all three PCs that were supposed to operate in the district (all in its centre) reportedly remained closed.

Gulbad and Gultepa districts

Both Gulbad and Gultepaare newly established districts that are entirely under Taleban control. Therefore, neither voter registration, nor parliamentary election, took place.

Large voter disenfranchisement in rural and urban areas

Kunduz’ low turnout and its high degree of resulting voter disenfranchisement was caused mainly by the Taleban’s aggressive stance towards the election and high-level of actual violence on Election Day. These problems were exacerbated by the same technical and organisational problems reported from elsewhere in the country. However, the Taleban threats and violence failed to entirely stop Kunduzis from taking part in the election.

The combination of security and organisational problems strongly impacted not only Kunduz’s rural, but also its urban, population. The urban-rural divide observed by AAN in other provinces also manifested itself in Kunduz, as a large majority of voters came from the provincial and some district centres.

The question remains as to whether a larger number of people will take part in the presidential election scheduled for April 2019, if the security situation does not significantly improve.

 

(1) In the 6 November 2018 UNAMA civilian protection special report “2018 Election Violence” that was released while this text was under work, Kunduz province is not mentioned. According to this National Democratic Institute report, already the 2010 parliamentary elections were “plagued by election day violence.” It quotes candidates saying voter turnout was “extremely low”, particularly in Chahrdara and Dasht-e Archi.

(2) Read AAN impressions from the presidential elections in 2014 here and here.

(3) According to the World Bank, nearly two thirds of Afghanistan’s population is below 25 years of age. This gives a countrywide voting age population of around 50 per cent. We use this percentage here roughly, in order to show orders of magnitude, rather than the exact figures.

 

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Americas

The US Special Operations Command is ordering additional helicopters from Boeing. The awarded contract modification is priced at $42.8 million and provides for four new build MH-47G Chinooks. The MH-47G is a new version of the helicopter platform that first flew in 1962 and has been configured to perform long-range day and night missions, in inclement weather at low levels. The Chinooks feature enhanced digital avionics and flight control systems, as well as a sturdier monolithic airframe increasing survivability. According to the DoD press release, SOCOM needs those additional rotorcraft to satisfy an urgent need for heavy assault helicopters. Work will be performed at Boeing’s factory in Ridley Park.

The Canadian government is entering the next stage of its fighter procurement program. In a draft bid package posted on October 26 procurement officials name five companies that could make the run in the upcoming tender. Canada needs to replace its ageing fleet of fighter aircraft with 88 new ones at a cost of $12 billion. Lockheed Martin’s F-35, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, Saab’s Gripen and the Boeing Super Hornet will likely be considered and the companies are expected to give their feedback by the end of this year. Ottawa plans to receive initial proposals from bidders between summer and winter 2019. A contract is anticipated to be awarded during the winter months of 2021-2022. Canada wants initial aircraft to be delivered in 2025, with IOC achieved by 2026. The Royal Canadian Air Force wants all aircraft delivered by 2031 or 2032, at which time the CF-18 fleet will be retired.

Raytheon is marking another milestone in its Ship Self Defense System (SSDS) program. During a recently held test one of the USMC’s F-35Bs made a successful digital air connection with the USS Wasp. SSDS uses software and commercial off-the-shelf electronics to turn incoming data from several systems into a single picture of prioritized threats. The system then recommends an engagement sequence for the ship’s crew, or (in automatic mode) fire some combination of jamming transmissions, chaff or decoys, and/or weapons against the oncoming threat. “Information is key for any Commander – and shared information from multiple sources and vantage points extends our battlespace and our advantage over enemy threats,” said U.S. Navy Captain Danny Busch, Program Executive Office – SSDS. “Now with the ability to link our sensors and weapons, from sea and air, SSDS is providing a level of interoperability and defensive capability never before available to the Expeditionary fleet.”

Boeing’s new KC-46 tanker receives more certifications as it successfully completes aerial refueling of two additional aircraft types. During recently held tests the KC-46 completed receiver certification testing for the B-52 bomber and the F/A-18 fighter jet, with the F-15 to follow next year. A Boeing spokesperson says that the certification test are in preparation for the start of Initial Operational Test and Evaluation work next year. KC-46A is a militarised version of the 767-2C. Modification include aerial refueling equipment, an air refueling operator’s station that includes panoramic 3-dimensional displays, and threat detection/ countermeasures systems. Boeing recently missed the delivery schedule for its first aircraft which was expected to take place on October 27. The KC-46 acquisition program sees for the delivery of 179 tankers at a cost of $44.3 billion, with the first aircraft expected to be delivered between April and June 2016.

Middle East & Africa

Boeing is being tapped to continue maintenance support for the Royal Saudi Air Force’s fleet of F-15 fighter aircraft. The company is being awarded with a $14.6 million contract that sees for the sustainment of the Aircraft Maintenance Debrief System (AMDS). The F-15 is an all-weather, extremely maneuverable, tactical fighter designed to achieve aerial superiority in combat situations. The contract allows Boeing to provide trained personnel to use and maintain AMDS equipment at six locations throughout Saudi Arabia. The company’s staff also train RSAF members on how to operate and maintain the equipment. Work will be performed at multiple locations in Saudi Arabia and is expected to run through November 4, 2023.

The Turkish government is contracting a team of three Turkish companies to build the country’s first indigenous long-range air and anti-missile system. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled the National Long Range Regional Air Missile Defense System (SIPER) project on Wednesday. “This system is crucial for Turkey’s defense and they (the partners) are taking a new step with this project that will upgrade Turkey in the league of defense systems,” Erdo?an was quoted by Defense News’s Burak Ege Bekdil. The SIPER system will be produced by the Turkish state-run military electronics manufacturer Aselsan, state-controlled missile producer Roketsan, and Tübitak Sage, a state research institute. For the next 18 months the companies will conduct a definition study to prepare a a development and production contract for the future system. SIPER is expected to be completed by 2021.

Europe

Germany will be able to integrate Lockheed’s Patriot PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missile into its next-generation TLVS missile defense system. TLVS is a highly mobile ground based air and missile defense system for protection against the current and future threat spectrum in the lower tier. TLVS is developed by an MBDA and Lockheed Martin joint venture. Build upon the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), TLVS is easily transportable, tactically mobile and uses the hit-to-kill PAC-3 MSE missile to defeat tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft, providing full 360-degree engagement. Since its final decision in 2015 the German government was unable to move forward on its new air-defense system because Lockheed needed US governmental approval to integrate the Patriot missile into the TLVS. A spokesman at the German defense ministry said, “There is new momentum. Both sides are clearly committed to successful completion of the TLVS program.” The new air-defense system was expected to cost about $4.56 billion, however current estimates suggest a cost overrun by several billion. Germany wishes to sign a contract for TLVS in 2019 and field the system in 2025.

Asia-Pacific

India recently conducted a user trial night-time test of its Agni-I ballistic missile. The Agni-I is a short-range ballistic missile that was first launched in 2002. The Agni-I is a single-stage missile developed to fill the gap between 250 km range of Prithvi-II and 2,500 km range of Agni-II. Weighing 12 tonnes, the 15-metre-long Agni-I, is designed to carry a payload of more than one ton, including a nuclear warhead. Its strike range can be extended by reducing the payload. The missile has a specialised navigation system which ensures it reaches the target with a high degree of accuracy and precision. During the user trial a randomly selected unit launches a test missile to prove the system’s overall performance and crew readiness. The trajectory of the trial was tracked by a battery of sophisticated radars, telemetry observation stations, electro-optic instruments and naval ships from its launch till the missile hit the target area with accuracy, the Indian military said. In recent months the decade long conflict Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan started to resurface.

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The people of Kandahar cast their vote on 27 October 2018, a week later than the rest of the country. Although no figures have been released, turnout appears to have been good in Kandahar city and Spin Boldak, as was expected, and patchy to nonexistent in most other districts. The IEC had stressed that the bad experience of the first two days of the election would not be repeated in Kandahar. Still, the vote was marred by late starts and technical problems, which the IEC is trying to underplay. AAN’s Ali Mohammad Sabawoon takes a closer look (with input from Martine van Bijlert).

Security, voting and turnout

The people of Kandahar went to cast their vote on 27 October 2018, a week later than the rest of the country. (1) The day before the election, Abdul Badi Sayad, the Head of the IEC announced they intended to open 172 polling centres across the province with a total of 1112 polling stations. Sayad said possibly “some 12 polling centres may remain closed because of security reasons.” He also said there would be no vote in Maruf and Nesh due to insecurity, since there had been no registration in those districts. (2)

On election day security was tight. Security officials had announced a transport ban, starting the day before the election at 2:00 pm. Movement by vehicle in Kandahar city was forbidden, unless permission had been granted. (Every candidate was given permission for the use of two vehicles; observers and reporters were also allowed to move in the city to visit polling centres and cover the election). Abdul Hanan Munib, the acting governor of Kandahar, told the media in the morning that the government would provide voters the facilities of mili buses (government local buses) in the city. He also said that the health department of Kandahar had prepared ambulances in case something happened or civilians faced health problems. AAN asked three voters if they had seen any buses in action. Two of them said they had indeed seen some buses moving in the city but that they had not been enough to tackle the problems of voters in term of transportation.

The turnout in Kandahar city and Spin Boldak district – the home area of assassinated General Razeq –, according to observers, appeared to be good, with women coming out to vote as well. Kandahar city and Spin Boldak were also where, by far, the most voters had registered (see this AAN dispatch for details). Turnout was less in the nearby districts and negligible in the more remote and insecure districts.

According to Ataullah Wisa, a civil society activist, there had been no voting at all in Reg and Shurabak districts; “Not a single person voted,” he said (which should not come as a surprise, given that these districts registered respectively only 161 and 203 voters). He thought there had been some voting in Khakrez, but not in all centres (Khakrez actually had only two polling centres with a voter registration of 409, 32 of which were women). He thought the overall turnout had been good and corruption less than in previous elections, because of the use of biometric checks – based on contacts with observers and what he had seen on social media. He hoped this would lead to a change in the province’s representation. “Thank God,” he said, “it seems that the old members of the Wolesi Jirga did not receive enough votes to return to the parliament.”

Residents in Ghorak district said the security forces were the only ones to cast their votes in that district. Juma Khan, a resident of the Ghorak, told AAN that two IEC teams had gone to Kikak village where the security forces were based (Kikak is also where Ghorak’s district centre was shifted to, in summer 2018). He said “There were no observers in this centre. The security forces voted, but no civilians cast their vote.” According to him, 570 security forces had registered there during registration process, but he did not know how many cast their votes. He said the civilians even hadn’t registered.

Ghausuddin Frotan, a local journalist and observer, told AAN that turnout appeared to be low even close to Kandahar city. By 10:30 on election day he had seen only two voters cast their votes in the polling centre of Mirwais Mena. Mirwais Mena is around five kilometres from Kandahar city.

A repeat of the first two election days: late starts and technical problems

Like in the rest of the country (see earlier AAN reports here and here), Kandahar’s vote was marred by technical and logistical problem, despite assurances by the head of the IEC that the bad experience from 20 October would not be repeated here. According to the IEC, they had provided additional training and had created reserve voters lists as well as backup biometric systems, so that whenever a problem occurred they would be able to quickly address it.

Still there were many complaints: many polling centres did not open on time; voter lists were missing, wrong or incomplete; and there were still problems with the biometric system.

An observer from Kandahar told AAN that polling centres in Kandahar city, Panjwai, Zharai and Arghandab, and Kuchis centres in Spin Boldak districts did not start their work on time – either because of the late arrival of the staff or their unfamiliarity with the biometric system. As a result, the polling centres opened at 9:00 am, 10:00 am, sometimes not until noon. This occurred for instance in Aino Mena’s Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan polling centre, Malalai high school and in Shah Bazar Jama polling centre. Once the centres were open, there were still problems with the voter lists and many people were unable to find their names. In some cases, the lists of one centre had gone to the other and the other to the next, which meant that in those centres nobody could find their names in the list.

Large crowds of people gathered in front of Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan polling centre in Aino Mena, where voting started two hours late. Muhammad Salim, a voter, later told AAN that in this centre the problem had been the biometric system. He said that many of the employees were not familiar with it and many people had been unable to find their names in the voter lists. A journalist who did not want his name to be mentioned gave AAN a different explanation: “The biometric system of Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan polling centre was forcefully taken away by a candidate and then at 11:00 am it was brought back to the polling centre.”

The polling centre in Safiya Ama Jan girls’ high school, nearby, only opened at 11:00 am. Observers said that the ballot papers reached the centre late. Shafia, a voter, told AAN at noon, that she had come at 7:00 am and was still waiting to vote, five hours later. Safiya, a woman in Nahiya three, said that in a polling centre here the biometric system had worked only until noon and after that it no longer worked. “After that,” she said, “the voters were allowed to vote without biometrics.”

In other places it had been possible to vote without biometrics or voter lists, even earlier. A man who was speaking to Radio Liberty’s Pashto service from Kandahar Aino Mena, nearly two hours after the election began said that although he had registered himself in Nahiya two, he now lives in Aino Mena. He said he tried to go to the place where he registered, but because of the ban on transportation he couldn’t. Because he knew someone among the employees of the commission in Aino Mena, they had helped him cast his vote without checking his name in the list. He said he was the first among all those waiting to vote.

In the centre of Mahmud Tarzi high school in Kandahar city, ballot papers ran out and the biometric system was out of order. In Zaher Shahi high school many people could not find their names on the list; many went home without casting their votes. In Shahid Azimullah school, the women polling stations opened very late and the women faced many problems waiting in line. Once it was their turn, many could not find their names on the list. In Malalai high school, in Nahiya one of the city, only one of the three women polling centres was active and had a functioning biometric system. The employees of the remaining two centres were sitting doing nothing, as well as the observers.

In some places, particularly in the districts, staff did not turn up at all. In Moshan village, Panjwai district, for instance, only 12 out of the 20 IEC employees turned up. After a long wait, many people went home without casting their votes.

Missing materials in Kuchi centres

Frotan, the journalist and observer wrote in his face book page at 11:30 on election day, that tens of people were waiting to cast their votes in Ghazi Amanullah Khan polling centre of Kokran area, in an outskirt of Kandahar city. He said the centre was still closed because voting materials had not arrived. This was a separate Kuchi centre. Many people had come to the centre early in the morning and had waited for hours. He later said the centre opened very late in the afternoon.

There were also reports from Spin Boldak in the morning that Kuchis were waiting in front of their polling stations, but that there were no materials. AAN talked to Kandahar’s provincial IEC head, doctor Nematullah Wardak, on election day just before noon. He confirmed that the materials for Kuchis in Spin Boldak had not been sent, but said they were working on it. Wardak later told AAN that they had sent materials in the afternoon. Spin Boldak is nearly one and half hour drive from Kandahar city.

There were also reports of Kuchis being deprived from casting their votes in the Haji Aziz area of Nahiya five of Kandahar city. Muhammad Abdullah, a Kuchi elder, told AAN on 30 October that the Kuchis had a very good in turnout here, but that “the ballot papers finished in the afternoon and many Kuchis could not cast their votes.” He said that in their area there was only one polling station. (There seem to be two possible explanations here. Either the IEC mistakenly sent fewer ballots than had registered as voters, or more people tried to vote than had originally been registered.)

A journalist in Kandahar city who did not want to be named told AAN that he  thought the late opening of polling stations for Kuchis in Spin Boldak, Zhari and Kokaran had been a planned issue, so that a particular candidate could receive – presumably fraudulent – votes and that this candidate was supported by the police in those stations.

Voter influencing

There were also reports of (attempted) voter influencing. For instance Abdul Sabor, a resident of Kandahar city, told AAN that on election day he saw a large candidate photo stuck on a vehicle, close to the polling station, which is contrary to the election law. According to reports from a women polling centre in Sufi Baba in Chawnai area of Kandahar, a woman candidate was telling voters to cast their votes in her favour and was telling election employees to let her voters vote without a thorough check of the registration stickers and lists. According to a complaint from Zhari district, a journalist in Kandahar told AAN, in a Kuchi polling centre the voters were not allowed to cast their votes, unless they voted for a particular candidate. The observer said this took place with the help of the police and the observers who were present.

Muhammad Yar Yar, a famous poet and politician in Kandahar, wrote on his Facebook page “In Abdul Hadi Dawi polling centre of Dand district, the head of police district and the police on duty were forcing people to vote for [three specific candidates]. They did not let the observers of other candidates observe the process. They broke the mobiles of observers and tore their documents.”

Reports of fraud

There were indications of fraud in the election as well. Nematullah Wardak from the IEC said they had received reports of ballot stuffing in Panjwai district, which they were investigating. Abdul Wodud Tarah, a commissioner in Kandahar’s Election Complaint Commission office told AAN on 30 October, that more than 100 employees of the Complaints Commission, in different places, had been forced to leave the polling centres where they were stationed by powerful candidates and had not been allowed to observe the process.” He further said there were reports that some candidates had ballot stuffing done in their favour during the night before the election. He also said that in Spin Boldak a son of a candidate had told the voters they would not be allowed to vote, unless they cast their vote in favour of his father. “Nearly 300 voters went back home without casting their votes,” Tarah said.

Responses by the IEC and ECC

Nematullah Wardak, head of Kandahar election commission, admitted in a press conference just after the election that there had been some “technical problems in the beginning.” He said this had caused “ten per cent of the polling centres” to open late. He also admitted that dozens of election commission employees had not shown up because of security threats and that this had caused polling centres to open late. Wardak also accepted that in some places there had been a shortage of ballots papers and the commission had not transferred all ballots to the centers, but he said they had been able to cover it during the day.

On 30 October Wardak told AAN that “according to the information we have received by phone from all over the province, a total of around 230,000 people voted in Kandahar province.” This represents a little over 40 per cent of the number of registered voters. He said that according to his information all polling centres had been open, although in some cases, he said, “one or two polling stations [in a centre] may have remained closed, either because of technical problem or the low number of voters.”

Some observers, however, estimated that as many as 200 employees of the election commission may have been absent on the day of election. They thought that probably in particular some women staff had not been allowed to go to work by their husbands or family members, because they thought that after the assassination of General Razeq the security situation may get worse.

Karimullah Stanakzai, the head of the Electoral Complaint Commission (ECC) said in the same press conference that they had received around 350 complaints from Kandahar province on its election day. Twelve had been officially submitted and the rest came in by phone. He said the complaints included the late opening of polling centres, nonexistence of voter’s names in the lists, technical problem with the usage of the biometric system or the absence of the biometric system and the influencing of voters. He said that, those complaints would be investigated in 15 days. Abdul Wodood Tarah, a commissioner in Kandahar’s Election Complaint Commission office told AAN on 30 October, that by that time “around 200 complaints” had been officially registered with the commission (so not counting the complaints that had only come in by phone.

The Kandahar IEC’s Wardak told AAN on 30 October that the ballots had reached Kandahar city from all districts, but had not yet been officially handed over to the commission. The ballots were transferred from five districts – Ghorak, Mianeshin, Reg, Khakrez and Shorabak – by air.” Wardak said that turnout had been highest in Kandahar city and Spin Boldak district (which was to be expected, given the registration figures), but that he did not know what other districts had seen significant turnout.

Looking ahead

In the coming weeks, the IEC will be counting Kandahar’s vote and entering the numbers into the database. It will also be deciding what to do with the votes that were cast without voter lists or biometric verification. If the rules are applied strictly, this may become tumultuous. People who have stood in line for hours might see their votes invalidated because of logistical problems, hardware failure or because IEC staff didn’t properly follow the procedures. Candidates are likely to clamour in an effort to get boxes that hold their votes accepted. If the rules are not applied strictly, the IEC might let through clear cases of ballot stuffing.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert

 

(1) The week-long delay of Kandahar’s election was in response to the assassination of General Abdul Razeq, the chief of Kandahar police and General Abdul Momin Hussainkhel, the head of national security department, two days before the country’s parliamentary election (see here).

(2) According to this list of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission, the IEC, 567,608 people had registered to cast their votes, 73,595 of which were women and 10,262 of which had registered for the nationwide Kuchi constituency (gender not specified). They could choose between 111 candidates (112 minus one: Nasir Mobariz who was assassinated nearly a month ago in Kandahar), 12 of which were women. The candidates were competing for 11 seats (3 of which were allocated to the women).