Presidential and Provincial Elections, 20 August 2009

Following an invitation from the Afghan government, the OSCE Permanent Council mandated ODIHR to deploy an Election Support Team (EST) to the 2009 presidential and provincial council elections “to support government and international efforts” and “to produce a report on the electoral process… including a set of recommendations” for the next elections in 2010 and beyond.

The OSCE/ODIHR EST was composed of twenty team members from eleven OSCE participating States and led by Mr. Toralv Nordbø. Following a small advance team deployment, the majority of experts arrived in country on 26 July and departed on 20 September. Due to the protracted election process, the OSCE/ODIHR EST continued to operate with a limited number of experts in Afghanistan until 4 November.

Although there was no permanent field presence outside Kabul, field visits were undertaken as security allowed and regular discussions were held with domestic and international observers with a field presence.

According to the final report: The elections were “held under extremely challenging circumstances, including a volatile security environment that undermined the ability to hold credible elections. The lack of effective measures to prevent irregularities, widespread fraud on election day, and the failure of the Afghan-formed Independent Election Commission (IEC) to respond resolutely and efficiently to malpractices, resulted in a deep lack of confidence in the process.”

“Despite repeated calls for long-term and sustained electoral support after the 2004 and 2005 elections, insufficient attention was paid to this priority recommendation in the following years. As a result, an opportunity for a comprehensive voter registration exercise, legislative reforms and capacity-building of the IEC was missed. Although the international community provided both the financial resources and expert advice, this assistance came too late to maximize its impact. Furthermore, during these elections, the IEC failed to implement its tasks in an independent and impartial manner. Some of its actions and decisions raised doubts about its neutrality.”