The UN-Afghan joint commission, JAMB, has delayed the release results from parliamentary elections held in September. This is due to some 500 complaints filed related to possible electoral fraud committed at individual polling stations, all of which are being investigated before any final results are announced.

The certification of final results from Afghanistan’s 18 September parliamentary elections has been delayed because of fraud complaints. A spokesman for the joint UN-Afghan election commission says about 500 complaints that are still being investigated could affect the outcome of some races. The allegations of fraud include the intimidation of voters, the stuffing of ballot boxes, and questionable vote-counting procedures.

Prague, 31 October 2005 (RFE/RL) — The final results from Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections initially were expected to be certified by 22 October. But the announcement was delayed at least until 1 November due to slow vote counting in some provinces.

Sultan Ahmad Baheen, a spokesman for the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), now says the date has been pushed back once again because of fraud complaints. He said certification of all of the results isn’t expected until the end of this week, at the earliest.

“ÄOn 30 October,Å the commission announced that there are about 500 complaints that could affect the outcome of the election. They should be investigated, and then a decision should be made about the final list,” Baheen said.

Since then, some 2,300 complaints about the vote have been officially filed with the JEMB. Hundreds of candidates and their supporters have staged protests in major cities — including the capital, Kabul — against fraud complaints and accusations of irregularities.

The latest delay in announcing the results marks the first time the JEMB has acknowledged that the fraud may be significant enough to affect results. In the past, commission officials had admitted there was widespread fraud. But they had insisted that the fraud would not damage the credibility of the elections.

Among them is Aleem Siddique, an international media-relations officer with the JEMB. Earlier this month, Siddique told RFE/RL that ballot boxes from about 4 percent of the polling stations across Afghanistan were put under quarantine by the JEMB due to “clear evidence” of tampering or other irregularities.

Siddique said that, to preserve the integrity of the election, the certification of official results must wait until decisions have been made about all of those polling stations — and until all complaints about the preliminary results have been resolved.

“These are all localized incidents. There is no evidence that there has been any attempt at countrywide fraud. We’re obviously dependent on the time that it takes to complete our investigation satisfactorily before we can actually certify results,” Siddique said.

There are lots of things that could have happened here. Procedure may not have been followed properly. Logistical problems with the polling stations or transporting and maintaining the security of ballot boxes are certainly a problem in under-developed countries. Poorly trained and politically biased Afghani poll workers could have tampered with or not counted ballots. Warlords with loyal henchmen could have intimidated voters in their districts. There are probably more, and it’s JEMB’s job to find out.

According to a poll over at RFE/RL at this time, the majority of people seem to be taking a very pessimistic view of things. 31% believes the delays are simply due to logistics in an under-developed country, but 19% think the procedure is highly flawed and an additional 25% believe that the authorities are trying to rig the results so that fewer militants and Islamists gain seats. Only 9% believe that the elections were completely free and fair.

It’s all possible. Judging an election in one of the most impoverished countries in the world is hard to do by western standards, where corruption and intimidation are much more prevelant. It will be interesting to see if many fewer Islamist and militant candidates win seats in the end. It will also be interesting to see how this affects the popular perception of credibility of the elections, and even more so, the legitimacy of the government as a whole.