Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission announced today that it is going to delay parliamentary elections. The elections, originally scheduled for May 22 have now been pushed to September 18th. A member of the Afghan election committee, Fazil Ahmad Manawi, justifies the set-back by stating, "the additional time would permit the commission to enact new rules and safeguards to prevent the kind of large-scale fraud that tainted the presidential election in August." That's strange, because the Afghan Constitution specifically tasks the Election Commission with holding presidential polls at least a month before the end of the president's term in office on May 22, leading to expectations of an April vote.
I don't think it takes much logical extrapolation to easily detect how this a direct example of political corruption. According to an interview with Radio Free Europe, Mohammad Yunis Qanuni, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, agrees with my assertion. Qanuni stated that the Election Commission had no legal authority to delay the vote and further voiced his prediction in a statement to the Afghan parliament. "I want to formally share my concerns about the holding of elections. If the situation continues as it is today, you will not see elections on August 20."
The Afghan legal expert Nasrullah Stanekzai says, "the only way forward is for both houses of the Afghan parliament to now endorse the election commission's decision. Although it is a wrong decision, they still need to grant legitimacy to the extension of the president's term in office."
So let me get this straight. First the European Union finds that at least 1 million votes (1/3 of all ballots) for the current Afghan president Hamid Karzai were fraudulent, now his administration wants to illegally push back the date of parliamentary elections by 4 months? Now Stanekzai says that we need to respect the decision to grant "legitimacy" to his term. Are you kidding me? What am I missing that would illustrate to me a need for Karzai to not be immediately removed from his position?
To make matters worse, our government APPROVES of the delay. The following is from an article today from BusinessWeek,.
"The U.S. respects the Afghan decision to postpone the parliamentary contests," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement provided by Megan Mattson, a State Department spokeswoman.
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It seems to me the American public should be made aware of the "truth" concerning the decisions/policies our government makes in regard to endorsing elections in countries where we have military presence. It is our men who are fighting the frontlines. Do they have a say, an opinion, a vote? since they are risking their lives.
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