Background

The UN Electoral Support Project (UNESP) provides direct support to Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to conduct elections in Afghanistan from October 2017 to December 2019.

The project builds on previous UN projects in support of the Afghanistan democratic process, notably the Enhancing Legal and Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow (ELECT) projects, 2006-2011 (ELECT I) and 2012-2015 (ELECT II), and UNDP Project Initiation Plan July 2015 to October 2017. UNESP is being implemented by 111 staff comprising 43 international advisors and specialists and 68 national staff.

What has been  accomplished so far? (as of 30 April 2020)

Voter Registration: In 2018, at least 8,899,941 people comprising 8,728,284 regular voters (3,050,558 women), 171,304 Kuchi voters (38,685 women) and 353 Sikh voters (171 women) were registered. Through UNESP support, IEC was able to complete Voter Registration (VR) for the Wolesi Jirga (WJ) election and implement a Polling Centre-based Voter List (VL) for the first time in Afghanistan. In 2019, following voter registration update across 33 provinces and voter registration in Ghazni, the voters list used for the 2019 Presidential election had 9,665,777 voters (3,334,237 women and 6,331,540 men).

Candidate Nomination: In 2018, under UNESP guidance and support, IEC published the preliminary list of 2,565 WJ candidates of which 16 percent (418) were women and 84 percent (2,147) were men. This number includes one Sikh candidate (0 women), and 44 Kuchi candidates (8 women). The final list of candidates for the WJ election reduced from 2,565 to 2,558 candidates (415 women, 16.2 percent) following disqualification of seven candidates (3 women) by ECC. For the 2019 Presidential election, 2 of the 20 potential candidates did not submit complete documentation and were rejected by IEC, leaving 18 potential presidential candidates for the election. At the end of April 2019, IEC, with technical and advisory support from UNESP, conducted the ballot lottery to establish the order of the 18 certified presidential candidates (all men) on the ballot paper.

Voter turnout at 2018 Wolesi Jirga (Parliamentary) and 2019 Presidential elections: In 2018, of the 8,899,941 registered voters, a total of 3,660,124 valid votes were cast during election days of 20, 21 and 27 October 2018 of which 37.4 percent (1,369,808) were cast by women.  Overall 90 of the polling centres used BVV devices in the WJ elections with a coverage of 90 percent and above recorded in 19 provinces. In 2019, of the 9,665,745 registered voters, preliminary reports from IEC indicated that approximately 2,695,890 people cast their vote at 4,684 polling centres (24,258 polling stations). Following audit and recount processes and vote reconciliation, final results were announced from 1,823,948 valid votes (31 percent cast by women).

2018 Wolesi Jirga results: As of 30 April 2019, final results were announced for 32 provinces including the Kuchi and Sikh constituencies. Thereafter, IEC and ECC, with technical and financial support from UNESP, finalized the 2018 WJ election results except for Kabul. Final results for Kabul were announced on 14 May 2019. Consequently, 239 WJ candidates were announced and certified as winners, with women candidates constituting 27.6 percent (66 women) of the winning candidates.

Electoral Dispute Resolution: In 2018, 18,577 complaints were filed by the public, political parties, CSOs and stakeholders for WJ election with majority on WJ election days and publication of preliminary WJ results. All were adjudicated. ECC also made decisions on 781 appeal cases from 32 provinces, and Sikh and Kuchi constituencies. For the 2019 Presidential election, ECC registered and adjudicated 18 complaints regarding the voter registration process, with legal inputs from UNESP. In addition, ECC registered and adjudicated five complaints regarding early campaign. During the campaign period, ECC and provincial ECC (PECC) offices registered and adjudicated 124 complaints, including five appeals made against initial decisions. Further, ECC and PECCs, with legal opinions from UNESP, completed adjudication of 4,528 complaints registered on election day including 184 appeals registered against the decisions of PECCs and 32 exceptional letter-based complaints. Following announcement of the preliminary Presidential election results on 22 December, ECC registered and adjudicated 16,738 complaints against the preliminary results, and another 6,377 appeals against decisions made.

Participation of women

• The Regulations make special provisions for women, facilitating their engagement as voters and as candidates, easing the regulations for Women Candidate Nomination. In 2018, 16 percent of WJ candidates were women (415 of the 2,558). 
• In 2018, at least 3.1 million women registered to vote, constituting 34 percent of the total registered voters. Three provinces of Afghanistan (Bamyan, Daikundi and Jawzjan) recorded more women than men registrants. In the 2018 WJ election, at least 37.4 percent of the voters were women while in the 2019 Presidential election, at least 31 percent of the final biometric votes were cast by women.
• In 2018, women candidates constituted 27.6 percent of the selected winning WJ candidates (66 out of 239) in 33 provinces and two constituencies
• The IEC and ECC Commissioners appointed in March 2019 are headed by women. Two of the seven Commissioners for IEC are women (29 percent) and one of the five Commissioners for ECC is a woman (20 percent).
• Public outreach: In the 2019 voter registration exercise, 288,708 women (out of 1,209,773 citizens) participated in the 34,451 public outreach campaigns for voter registration exercise. Women constituted 24 percent of the citizens reached. In addition, during the campaign period, 897 Civic Educators (240 women) conducted 48,126 face to face public outreach meetings with 1,244,716 citizens (395,566 women). Cumulatively, 28 percent of the 2,454,489 people who participated in the public outreach events at the grassroots level were women.
• Use of the call centres: Data from IEC Call Centre shows that since June 2018, 14 percent (56,836 out of 393,641) of the callers were women. Data from ECC Call Centre shows that since September 2019, nine percent (140 out of 1,569) of the callers were women. They asked questions related to the various phases of the electoral events, EMBs and the Election Law.
• Electoral dispute resolution: At the start of December 2019, 14 percent of the people whose complaints had been registered in the electoral case management system were women.