Voter registration full of corruption: Lawmakers

KABUL or lower house members on Wednesday termed the voter registration process as “full of corruption” and called for the use of biometric system in the upcoming elections.

According to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), so far 8.6 million people have registered to vote in the Oct 20 parliamentary and district council elections.

Wolesi Jirga member from central Bamyan province Ustad Mohammad Akbari told today’s session that widespread corruption had been committed in the ID cards distribution process.

His colleague form eastern Kunar province Sakhi Mashwani also alleged corruption in the voter registration process. He claimed above 1000 voter registration cards had been issued to a village with a population of just 200 individuals in his province.

MP Obaidullah Barakzai from central Uruzgan province said one person in Bagrami district of Kabul province had been issued 20 ID cards. “In such a situation, how can we expect transparent polls.” 

A number of others lawmakers held similar views.

Earlier, leaders and representatives of a number of political parties and movements such as Hezb-i-Islami, Wahadat-i-Islami Afghanistan and Junbish-i-Milli and some other parties termed the voter registration process as inappropriate, fraudulent and demanded fresh registration of voters using the biometric system.

The political parties stressed transparency in upcoming polls by changing the current Single-Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system to Multi-Dimensional Representation (MDR).

They had warned: “If the government, ICE and international community do not accept our demands and we consider it a crisis for Afghanistan.”

pk/ma