Political Landscape

Afghanistan Election Conundrum (5):

A late demand to change the
electoral system
Ali Yawar Adili
8 Mar 2018
16 min
A group of influential political parties have called for a change to the electoral system. This emerged out of
the ongoing dispute between one of the parties, predominantly Tajik Jamiat-e Islami, and the presidential
palace over the contested dismissal of Balkh Governor Atta Muhammad Nur. The group wants political
parties to have a greater role in elections. Previous attempts at getting this have failed due to a lack of
consensus, and the electoral system remained unchanged. Moreover, this new attempt at changing the
electoral system has come very late. AAN’s Ali Yawar Adili takes a close look at the political parties’ demand
and its impact on preparations for the upcoming elections (with input from Thomas Ruttig).

This is part five of a series of dispatches about preparations for the elections. Part one dealt with political
aspects and part two dealt with an initial set of technical problems: the date, the budget and the debate
regarding the use of biometric technology. Part three dealt with the dilemmas over electoral constituencies.
Part four dealt with controversies around the appointment of a new member of the Independent Election
Commission, following the president’s dismissal of its chairman.

Leaders and o�icials of 21 political parties and groups came together at a conference in Kabul on 24 February
2018. They are coalescing around the demand for a change to the electoral system that would give political
parties more weight in the upcoming parliamentary ballot. The group includes major parties such as Jamiat-e
Islami, which is predominantly Tajik, predominantly Pashtun Hezb-e Islami (both factions of the party) (1),
mainly Uzbek Jombesh-e Melli Islami and two major factions of the Hazara-dominated Hezb-e Wahdat. The 21-
party group called in particular for parties to be allowed to field party-based candidates list and votes cast for
these lists being transferable in each constituency in order to “prevent wastage of people’s votes.”

There are currently 74 registered political parties in Afghanistan, according to the list on the Ministry of Justice’s
website. The group of 21 parties (see their full list in footnote 2) includes almost all of the former mujahedin
factions, but none of the smaller pro-democratic and formerly le�-wing parties.

The group’s 24 February “Statement of Political Parties and Currents about the Parliamentary Elections” (full
text here) and under footnote 2) also included a number of other demands, that: parliamentary elections
should be held before early Mizan 1397 (late September 2018) at the very latest; measures be taken to allow
refugees, IDPs and those who live in insecure areas to use their right to vote; a room to accommodate political
party agents be established within the IEC headquarters and provincial o�ices to allow for e�ective monitoring
of political parties of all ‘elections processes’; and that the polling centres in di�erent provinces that the IEC
recently removed due, it said, to security reasons, but without any details beyond that, should be reassessed
carefully and the IEC’s report should be shared with political parties.

The demand to strengthen the role of political parties in the electoral system is based on a proposal by the
Special Electoral Reform Commission (SERC) that was established by the government in 2015 to come up with
proposals for electoral reform. In December 2015, the SERC mainly suggested shi�ing from SNTV to a multi-
dimensional representation (MDR) system (more on this below).

This new motion to introduce an electoral system more conducive to political parties was initiated and driven
by Jamiat. On 25 February 2018, Muhammad Nateqi, deputy leader of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami Mardom
Afghanistan (led by Second Deputy Chief Executive Muhammad Mohaqeq), told AAN that the idea stemmed
from the negotiations between Jamiat and the Palace over President Ashraf Ghani’s contested dismissal of