A large segment of the Afghan population was forced to migrate to the neighbouring countries as a result of Afghanistan’s long history of humanitarian and political crisis. With the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and host government sources estimating that approximately 2.5 million Afghans were still displaced in Pakistan and Iran at the time of preparations for the 2004 elections, the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan undertook to include these refugees in the nation-building process.

Afghans in Pakistan and Iran had previously been given the opportunity to vote in post-conflict Afghanistan for the election to the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002, followed by the election to the Constitutional Loya Jirga in December 2003. (A Loya Jirga, or ‘grand council’ in the Pashto language, is a consultative forum unique to Afghanistan in which, traditionally, tribal elders convene to settle affairs of the nation or rally behind a cause.) The Emergency Loya Jirga was elected to form a transitional government, and the Constitutional Loya Jirga was elected to adopt Afghanistan’s first post-conflict constitution. Special procedures were used for both elections, which were indirect elections without universal suffrage.

The legal and administrative framework

The franchise for the 2004 presidential election was regulated by the constitution of Afghanistan; by the Election Law (chapter IV); by decisions of the Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) in consultation with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the government of Afghanistan; and by individual memoranda of understanding on the conduct of the out-of-country elections signed by the government of Afghanistan with the governments of Pakistan and Iran. The decision to offer the franchise outside Afghanistan was taken by the JEMB following an assessment undertaken jointly with UNAMA and the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in consultation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The location and timing of external voting were the responsibility of the JEMB. Sizeable Afghan communities had also been displaced to Tajikistan, the USA and some European countries. The JEMB’s decision to enfranchise only those displaced to Pakistan and Iran was taken for logistical reasons, as well as because the vast majority of expatriated Afghans were in those two countries.

The decision to provide the external vote to those displaced to Pakistan and Iran became highly political, as voting trends were expected to follow ethnic lines and the bulk of the refugees in Pakistan were Pashto, while those in Iran were Tajik and Hazara. Given its potential for politicization, the decision to conduct external voting was delayed several times; only when it became clear that both host countries would agree to allow and support the external franchise on their territories on conditions generally consistent with international standards was a final decision made by the JEMB.

Because the decision was made very late, the time available, including detailed negotiations with the host governments on the provision of support, was very limited. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) was finally contracted to undertake the operation only 69 days before election day, although it was contemplated much earlier that it would be chosen for the task. The conduct of the operation had to be outsourced, as the JEMB Secretariat had neither the logistical means nor the legal authority to operate outside Afghanistan. The IOM was chosen because of its previous experience in carrying out external voting operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, East Timor and Kosovo. It contracted IFES (formerly the International Foundation for Election Systems) to provide technical management to the Out-of-Country Registration and Voting Programme.

Time limitations, in turn, meant that it was impossible to establish election facilities (registration and/or polling centres) in all areas where there were clusters of Afghan communities. The operation was therefore limited to the main centres where Afghan populations were concentrated: areas of high security concern in Pakistan and isolated refugee camps in both Pakistan and Iran could not be reached.

External voting operations outside embassy premises (which are the territory of the country they represent) require legal agreements with the host country governments. These establish the general parameters of cooperation between the election management body or the organization contracted to undertake the operation on its behalf. In the case of post-conflict elections or situations where security is a concern, special assistance is often needed from the host government to ensure that the transport of election material takes place without delays or security incidents, that security is provided at the election facilities, that refugees are allowed to move freely and so on. Given the security concerns associated with Afghan elections, the negotiations with the governments of Pakistan and Iran were initially protracted. However, once cooperation was secured, the two governments made all efforts to facilitate the IOM’s mandate. This extended particularly to the provision of official security for the operations, without which registration and/or voting could not have taken place.

Although the government of Pakistan offered to become quite deeply involved in the electoral process and assist with the organization of the elections in the areas not reached by the IOM, this was not thought to be appropriate. The point at issue was the electorate’s expectations of trust in the electoral process, which outweighed the undoubted value of Pakistan’s electoral management infrastructure.

Eligibility

According to the legal framework, Afghans living in Pakistan and Iran were entitled to participate in the election provided that they were 18 years of age by election day and could prove their Afghan nationality.

Inside Afghanistan, as there was no voter register in place for the 2004 presidential election, a voter registration exercise was also organized before the election. Gender-segregated registration (and, subsequently, polling) stations were established throughout the country from 1 December 2003 to 20 August 2004. Registration procedures established that upon the presentation in person of documentation proving eligibility according to the requirements set out by the JEMB (identity, age and Afghan nationality), Afghans would be registered. Each registered elector was then issued with a registration card containing address and identification information, including a photograph taken at the Registration Centre.

In Pakistan, under criteria determined by the JEMB, all Afghan citizens over the age of 18 at the time of election and who had arrived in Pakistan after 1979 were entitled to register to vote. In order to vote, all eligible electors had to undergo an advance registration process. In exceptional circumstances, where applicants did not have documents showing that they were from Afghanistan, a special interview procedure was put in place which was subject to a ‘challenge’ procedure at the time of voting. Electoral registration followed the same principles as applied to the in-country process—advance in-person registration; the issuing of an electoral registration card, in this instance without a photograph; arrangements for the voter lists to be on public display for a certain period before polling; and gender-segregated registration facilities.

In Iran, the JEMB decided to waive the advance registration requirements as the government authorities were able to make a refugee database available for election purposes. The Iranian Ministry of the Interior had set up a sophisticated documentation system since the refugee flow began, and this database and documentation system were used without further evidence of Afghan nationality being required. The JEMB decided to accept that the government-issued refugee card could be used as means of proving identity and eligibility to vote. The IOM negotiated with the Iranian authorities to extend the eligibility criteria from only those who participated in the 2003 refugee registration process to all Afghans legally residing in Iran. A skeleton electoral register was created on election day itself.

Additionally, Afghans who were on the registers in Afghanistan were allowed to vote from abroad in the election. This special procedure was introduced in response to security concerns, related mostly to geographical areas at the borders with Pakistan and Iran. The threat level here was higher, in the context of widespread cross-border migration between Afghanistan and its two neighbours, Pakistan in particular.

The personal registration and polling method was chosen as the postal infrastructure of the two host countries was deemed unable to support a postal voting option. Proxy registration and proxy voting were also not made available because of the specific cultural context in which the election was to take place and the ease with which identification documents could be forged.

Implementation and turnout

To implement the Out-of-Country Registration and Voting Programme, the IOM established programme headquarters in Islamabad, Pakistan, and two regional offices in Islamabad and Tehran, Iran. Eight field offices were established in Pakistan and seven in Iran to coordinate registration, polling, voter outreach and counting activities.

Voter registration was organized over four days commencing on 1 October and ending on 4 October. (A three-day process was initially scheduled. However, a one day extension was decided upon to ensure maximum participation.) A total of 1,657 registration stations in 630 centres, with equal numbers of stations for women and men, were established in eight urban and refugee camp clusters throughout Pakistan. Over the four days of the registration period, 737,976 Afghans registered in Pakistan, of whom 28 per cent were women. The low female turnout was expected given the very short period of time for voter education and registration. This turnout was also comparable with the approximately 33 per cent female turnout inside Afghanistan.

Given that sufficient time was not available for an adequate electoral registration process, the lack of adequate documentation of the refugee population became the most significant challenge to establishing a fraud free election. As voters were not able to be issued with photographic registration cards, an anti-fraud mechanism had to be put in place at the time of registration. Thus, in order to prevent duplication of names on the electoral register, a decision was made to apply voter marking ink at the time of registration as well as at the time of polling.

The election was held on 9 October 2004 both in-country and out-of-country. A total of 2,787 polling stations were established in Pakistan and Iran. In Pakistan, the number of stations was adjusted from 1,657 used during registration to 1,661 which were located in 630 polling centres. In Iran, 1,093 polling stations were opened in 125 polling centres. In total, 818,189 Afghans participated in the election from abroad (577,776 in Pakistan and 240,413 in Iran), which constituted 10.06 per cent of the total electorate (8,128,940 voters).

In Pakistan, 80 per cent of the registered electorate participated in the polls, whereas in Iran voter turnout represented half of the estimated eligible voters (estimated between 400,000 and 600,000). The overall high turnout in both Pakistan and Iran was achieved due to the extensive voter education campaigns conducted by the IOM Out-of-Country Registration and Voting Programme and also to the Afghan community’s great interest in participating in their first-ever democratic election. Female turnout reached 32 per cent of the total electorate—29 per cent in Pakistan and 40 per cent in Iran. In Iran, women’s participation was in proportion to their share in the population, largely due to high levels of literacy and the influence of Iranian society on the Afghan women. According to government data, women constitute approximately 40 per cent of the total Afghan population in Iran.

Funding

There were no budgetary constraints on the decision-making process. Once the political decision had been made, funding was made available for voter registration and polling through the voluntary donation project budget. The multilateral Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was set up in May 2002 to provide, among other things, support to Afghanistan in the area of recurrent costs of the government. In addition to the United States, 21 donors pledged 430 million US dollars (USD) to the fund. The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan maintains an inventory of donor-funded activities through the Afghan Assistance Coordination Unit, a subordinate office of the Ministry of Finance. The ARTF is jointly managed by the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the UNDP and the World Bank, which also administers the fund. External election-specific fund-raising was coordinated by the UNDP, and 26.7 million USD were made available to the IOM on the basis of a cost estimate contained in its proposal to the JEMB. The total cost of the Out-of-Country Registration and Voting Programme amounted to 91 per cent of the initial estimate of 24,289,322 USD, or approximately 20 USD per voter in Iran and 32 USD per voter in Pakistan, where advance registration increased the cost per voter.

The future of external voting in Afghanistan

Although repatriation exercises have been taking place from both Iran and Pakistan, over half a million Afghans remained displaced in Pakistan towards the end of 2005. If a political decision is made to continue to conduct external voting, similar future operations during the transitional period could probably be funded from the same sources and through the same mechanisms as those used for the 2004 presidential election.

For Afghanistan’s elections to the legislature in September 2005, the candidate-centred Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system in use meant that a different ballot paper had to be used for every electoral district, and getting the correct ballot paper to all external electors would have been immensely costly and complex. The political decision made was not to provide the franchise abroad for these elections because of the high costs involved and because no consensus as to the system to be employed could be reached. However, special registration and polling centres, open until very late on election day, were set up close to the borders to allow migrants in neighbouring countries to come into Afghanistan to vote. This might be seen as a ‘halfmeasure’ designed to achieve the maximum extension of the franchise to nationals who were out of country at the time of the elections, short of actually introducing external voting. If it is decided in future to offer the option of external voting for parliamentary elections, changes to the legal framework governing external voting will need to be made to define the method by which external votes are to be translated into seats. Like some other countries, Afghanistan may decide to allow external voting only for presidential elections.