As the date for the complete withdrawal of the international security forces is getting nearer, the concerns are increasing, as well. Many accomplishments have to be made by the Afghan authorities during the ongoing transition period. One of them is guaranteeing free and fair election.The election is scheduled to be held in 2014, which is the same year when the international forces will complete their withdrawal, so because both the important events overlap, the possibility that insecurity will dominate the election is very much evident.

The Afghan government and international community have to keep that in mind and must carry out measures to control the situation as the insecurity will definitely result in lower turnouts. Apart from insecurity, there are many other issues as well that have the capacity to influence the upcoming election. Unfortunately, the Afghan government in general and the Independent Election Commission (IEC) in particular do not have much time to bring all those changes.

IEC, recently, has enacted a five-year strategic plan to improve electoral administration and strengthen the electoral process, with the view that long-term policies would be able to make the election process transparent and trouble-free.

The Commission has mentioned that having a strategic plan would prepare the ground for an organization to develop, guide its staff into a specific goal and results in enhancing communications and ensuring transparency and it would be very much helpful in achieving the general goals of strengthening and generalizing democracy through establishing an atmosphere of trust and increasing the level of national participation and institutionalizing standard elections in the country.

Definitely, a long-term strategy would be very much helpful for the election in particular and the democratization of the country in general; however, the same could have been adopted earlier so that preparations would be made before the elections in 2014. The main objective of the commission at the moment should be to ensure that the upcoming election is free of fraud and corruption.

There are reports that suggest that the Commission is being dominated by the President so as to have as much influence as possible. Some of the major positions in the Commission are already filled in accordance to the choice of the President. Moreover, there are evident shortcomings in the capacity of the Commission to coerce its decisions before and during the election.

It is not possible to expect that the certain candidates who themselves are warlords and chieftains and enjoy the favor of the government authorities would be tamed by the decisions and arrangements of the Commission. Therefore, there is every possibility that the 2012 election will be marred with fraud and corruption, like the previous one. The national and international efforts have to produce some miraculous results to change the scenario.