As Saturday’s runoff vote nears, Afghan election monitoring groups and the presidential candidates' teams have looked to expedite the certification process for the observers they hope to have overseeing the process. For international observers, however, the race for credentials has been a bit less busy, with fewer expected to participate in the runoff than did in the first round.
Officials from international election monitoring and democracy advocacy group Democracy International have said they anticipate the number of foreign observers to be lower than the April 5 election, which itself saw fewer than was originally expected. As was the case during the first round, security threats were cited as a major factor in the decision to cut observer staff numbers for the runoff.
“Out of consideration for security and budget issues, there will not be extensive international monitoring, and we will rely on the candidates’ observers to monitor the transparency of the election,” Zekirya Barakzai, the head of Democracy International’s office in Afghanistan, said.
According to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), so far 60,000 certificates have been issued for runoff observers nominated by the two presidential campaigns. Friday is the last day to get a certificate. “We still have another 40,000,” IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said on Thursday, referring to the number of certificates that remain open for request.
Election officials have said 50,000 certificates were made available to each of the two candidates. But they did not specify how many had been requested and approved respectively.
Meanwhile, the Free & Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) has urged the electoral bodies to make it clear to their staff as well as the security forces that will be posted at polling stations on Election Day that observers are permitted by law to monitor the voting process.
“We strongly urge the electoral bodies to make it clear to the IEC staff and security forces that the observers can freely monitor the election this time,” FEFA Chief Nadir Naderi said.
During the first round there were reports of observers being chased out and barred from entering polling centers, which they said opened the door to ballot box stuffing and other improprieties.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/international-observers-have-weak-...
