23 June 2009 - More than eight thousand Afghans will be trained as observers for the forthcoming presidential and provincial council elections on 20 August.

It’s not only the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and its staff who are busy ahead of polling day.

Jandad Spinghar is running the “other half” of the election process: observation.

In August, Mr Spinghar’s office, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) that normally has only about 20 staff, is going to be one of the biggest organizations in the country observing the elections, employing about 8,000 people.

“We will be able to cover about 70 per cent of all polling stations,” said Mr Spinghar.

He added that ensuring the observer presence in the remaining 30 per cent would be next to impossible due to security reasons.

There will be about 29,000 polling stations in the 34 provinces across the country.

FEFA, supported by various international organizations including the election project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP/ELECT), is the single largest civil society organization in Afghanistan that is dedicated to election observation.

It also conducted observation of the 2004/05 elections.

Of the 8,000 observers, 400 will be long-term observers working with FEFA for about a month and the rest will be short-term observers working for just 10 days.

While FEFA itself recruits the full-time observers, the short-term observers will be recruited by its 15 partner organizations spread across the country.

Mr Spinghar said that though the presence of international observers is very critical for elections in Afghanistan, the security situation in the country may not allow effective international observation.

“Of course, it is good if we get large number of international observers. People believe that they are neutral,” said Mr Spinghar. “But, we don’t expect a lot of international observers because of security. They won’t be able to come in large numbers and they can’t go to rural areas.”

The European Union (EU), among other international bodies, is going to send an election observation mission to Afghanistan.

The most senior UN official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide told NATO Defence Ministers on 12 June that the UN is expecting “election observers and experts” from the EU and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

“Too few, I think, and therefore I encourage nations to send observer teams,” Mr Eide told the ministers. “Our task will be to coordinate their deployment to ensure that as much as possible of the country can be covered.”

Margie Cook, the chief electoral advisor at UNDP/ELECT, said election observation measures “the legitimacy and credibility” of the election process, while stressing the importance of having as many international observers as possible.

“It (election observation) is important that the data that is gathered is gathered in a measurable way, that it’s accurate, that it’s not anecdotal, that there is evidence to back it up, and that the analysis is thorough and careful so that it is a reliable and true picture of what went on,” said Ms Cook. “It’s a process that must be supported and it must take place.”

FEFA mobilized the same number of observers in the 2004/05 elections.

Mr Spinghar cites security reasons for mobilizing the same number of observers even though the number of registered voters has gone up to about 17 million from about 11.5 million in 2005.

By Tilak Pokharel, UNAMA

Website: Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA)

Website: Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan

Website: UNDP/ELECT