Afghan Elections 2014

Question 1

Abdullah

Answer 1

Tajik, frontrunner - president

Question 2

Power sharing scenarios

Answer 2

1) coalition gov

2) Prez - 1st candidate, PM - 2nd candidate

Question 3

Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai

Answer 3

ethnic Pashtun

Question 4

Abdul Rashid Dostum

Answer 4

Ghani’s 1st VP, Tajik, Mazar-i-Sharif

Question 5

Sarwar Danish

Answer 5

Ghani’s 2nd VP, Hazaran, fmr. Min of Justice

Question 6

Karzai as electoral mediator

Answer 6

Influences Independent Election Commission and Independent Election Complaints Commission

Question 7

Moderate Middle

Answer 7

Physical: Near 100% (urban) think gov is in control
Women: 1% favor Taliban
Army: 60% in favor (Feb 2014)
Police: 50% in favor
Taliban: 40% are puppets of other (or unemployed) (p. 30) (ATR Feb 2014)

Question 8

Are you better off than 10 years ago?

Answer 8

Yes: 90% women, 73% men

Question 9

Usuf Nuristani

Answer 9

IEC Chair, removed 331 polling stations due to fraud, added 291 back (what?)

Question 10

Odd in the 2014 Afghan Elections

Answer 10

777 polling stations didn’t report any votes (Nuristani reported)
525 stations disqualified
444 stations problematic
of those, 291 reviewed and found OK, added back.

Question 11

Observers (Issues)

Answer 11

Bad: no int’l LT observers until March 2014
Good: FEFA deployed 200 LT observers in 34 provinces
Bad: Use of public radio-TV for specific campaigners (Kandahar) and public officials encouraging votes for specific candidates (Takhar prov)
Good: Lots of use of public TV and Radio for “talk shows”

Question 12

Don’t Worry, We’ll Build it Again

Answer 12

What to do next time: Detectives? IEC publish who has transparency in their finances

Question 13

2010 Parlimentary Elections

Answer 13

Flashphoto counts: reduced theft by 60 percent and (ghost) vote counts for “connected candidates” by about 25 percent