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.
