KABUL (SW): The Independent Election Commission (IEC) urged the government on Wednesday not to miss opportunity furthermore and positively respond to the professional and constructive suggestions in providing an appropriate ground and required budget for holding future Wolesi Jirga and District Council elections.
The IES said it has already provided its plans and suggestions for holding forthcoming elections and presented them to relevant authorities. IEC has shared plans for technical reforms and reduction of electoral expenses on a timely manner with various stakeholders, it said.
The electoral body said the suggestions included enhancing capacity of electoral staff: (holding capacity building programs inside and outside the country, transmitting experience of international advisors and specialists to Afghan colleagues, organizational capacity building, and management of electoral information).
It has also stressed upon the need for better use of Information Technology: Using a database to recruit staff, providing a black list, identifying electoral offenders and transgressors for further follow ups, candidate nomination in related provinces and districts using a particular software, improvement in tracking electoral materials, providing facilities for agents and observers to have online access to accreditation letters.
Underlining the need to simplify the process, the IEC wants the government to improve the electoral procedures, i.e. simplifying forms, keeping a copy of result forms in the IEC provincial offices, improvement in quality of ballot box seals, renewal of central journal design for better application, review on duties of DFCs and polling center managers, review on criteria for acceptance of result and audit forms.
On the part of electoral mechanisms, the IEC has suggested linking each agent and observer with a specific polling center, training senior observers and agents by the IEC, enhancement in Election Day reporting process, signing separate MoUs with national and international observer organizations and better coordination with security forces.
As per cost saving, procuring electoral materials inside the country, better usage of previous electoral materials, making use of civil servants as electoral staff included the suggestions IEC presented to the government.
For fraud mitigation mechanism, the government has been asked to enhance conditions for monitoring and observation and developing effectiveness in monitoring process, establishing a retrieval and E-Day disorders tackling center.
ENDS
