As per schedule and after a long holiday, the audit and recount was once again postponed for another day due to absentee of Dr. Abdullah’s team observers. Yesterday, Aug. 2, was the date that the process should have been resumed in the presence of representatives of two rival candidates, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and Dr. Ashraff Ghani Ahmadzai as well as the international observers. But the process was postponed for another 24 hours because the representatives of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah did not participate.
Till now no exact reason is given about why Dr. Abdullah has decided to do so but the news about the backgrounds show that he still has not accepted the standards for approval of cancellation of ballot papers and ballot boxes. Meanwhile the process of recount and audit continue very slowly that if it continues on the same pace, then it would take months to get the ultimate result of the Presidential election. Around a month a half passed since the mediation between two candidates by US Secretary of the State John Kerry, yet no a step-forward has been held. Due to serious differences between the two candidates, three times the process of audit and recount has been stopped so far and it is likely face similar in the future because only thousands of votes have been audited and recounted from the total over eight million casted votes at the second round of election that also from provinces with least complaints about the fraud.
The process will face serious problems when it comes to provinces as the participation of people doubled and tripled in comparison to first round particularly eastern provinces. It seems current when the representatives of both candidates argue in terms of authenticity and falsehood of ballot papers or ballot boxes of provinces where both agree that fraud was minimum is a kind of preparation for tough encounter in provinces they have huge complaints for example like Nooristan, Khost, Paktia, and etc.
After the start of the process, it seemed that differences between observers cause serious problem and make the process move slow because had their own standard. Thanks after long discussion between UNAMA and election commissions there some standards on the basis of which observers can tell whether a casted ballot paper is fake or real. There are four standards for ballot papers. If any ballot paper does not have any of the four standards, it will be counted as rigged vote. Similarly, there are eight standards for the authenticity of ballot boxes. If any of the ballot boxes does not have any of the eight standards, then it will be cancelled.
Previously, the UNAMA announced that its suggested standards were accepted by election commissions and also both candidates have accepted them. But absentee of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah’s representatives reflect that there still serious differences on the standards and he thinks that the mentioned standards cannot filter pure and votes from rigged ones.
As the process takes longer time, worries increase. President Hamid Karzai on Saturday said that delay in the process is not acceptable at all. Dr. AshraffGhani also said that the process would be resumed even if the representatives of his rival do not participate. Similarly, the political uncertainly has confused civilians too. Many angrily express that it becomes more than a year that the country is held back by concerns over the destiny of election.
More than the process, the final result is far more worrisome. Though both candidates agreed to accept the result of election after the complete audit and recount no matter what would be the result! both of them openly agreed to accept even be the opposite what election commissions previously announced putting Mr. AshraffGhaniAhmadzai ahead of Dr. Abdullah by over one million votes. Such a result was beyond the expectation of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. With alliances he made with different figures across ethnic groups, he hoped that election result would appear far better than the first round when he won over even his close rival Dr. AshraffGhani with visible difference of vote percentage—over 45 percent of total votes while Dr. AshraffGhani gained slightly over 31 percent.
Such an unexpected result, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah viewed, was only possible through systematic fraud. On one hand, in provinces where the votes of Dr. AshraffGhani doubled and even tripled as restive provinces and also suffer from very conservative structure. Hence it is unlikely that women had taken part in the process and even due to fear from Taliban male also might not have participated.
Secondly, due to lack of authentic statistics about the population of each province, the amount of vote casted was too large in comparison to estimated population. As his supporters alleged that total vote casted in Khost province is far larger than its entire population.
Anyhow, it is not clear whether both candidates accept the result or not. Similar reactions are possible from either candidate as they did in the first and second round when results were announced by election commissions. However, both of them agreed that they will accept the result but there is no guarantee they do if any of them loses. Such an issue continues to hover over the political destiny of the country. people are worried what if any of them again does not accept the result because there is trust that they play fair if they lose.