KABUL - A senior United Nations official in Afghanistan has called for making next month’s Presidential run-off elections as transparent as possible, to candidates as well as to the public, so that the outcome will reflect the will of the people.

Speaking in a media encounter in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Sunday, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, Nicholas Haysom, also said that the 14 June election gives an opportunity for “a much more effective and complete democratic exercise to choose a leader that clearly has the support of the Afghan people.”

“I think the argument of having the second round is simply that the first round has not determined who is the legitimate leader,” said Mr. Haysom. “The second round gives an opportunity for a much more effective and complete democratic exercise to choose a leader that clearly has the support of the Afghan people.”

On 14 June, Afghanistan will hold a second round run-off in its Presidential elections between the two top candidates from the first round, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, after none of those seeking the position achieved the 50 per cent plus one result needed to win it in the first round held on 5 April.

The democratic exercise, which UN officials have termed as being critical to the country’s future stability and continued international support, marks for the first-ever transfer of power from one elected President to another in the country’s history.

In his remarks, Mr. Haysom also flagged some of the potential problems associated with the holding of the elections, including security risks, and political and ethnic polarization.

“I think the Afghan public and we, the UN, have asked the candidates to assure us that the campaigns would not to be conducted in a manner which promotes the risk of ethnic tension and violence,” said Mr. Haysom, who is also a deputy head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

UNAMA has noted that the process leading up to the first round represented an improvement over past votes. For the first time, the elections were conducted based on laws passed by the National Assembly rather than Presidential decree. They were, for the first time, fully Afghan-managed by the two independent electoral institutions, constituted on the basis of a formal consultative process set out in the new legislation.

In his statement welcoming the results of the 5 April Presidential vote, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hoped that lessons learned from this process will be applied to any future ballot to maintain an impartial and transparent process. He also encouraged the two candidates to continue to respect the electoral process as it moves to a second round.

In response to a question at Sunday’s media encounter, Mr. Haysom said the worst case scenario would be a situation which is both polarizing and in which the results are not accepted by one of the candidates.

“That has potential to lead to conflict, and the remedy to that is to make the election as transparent as possible, not to only for the candidates and for their teams, but also for the public, so the public itself is confident that the result reflects the will of the people,” he added.

The UNAMA official noted that communication by the country’s two election management bodies – the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) – with the public and with the candidates will be critical. He also said that the two candidates contesting the run-off have a responsibility towards the integrity of the process by encouraging their supporters not to commit fraud, and by stating publically that they do not want to be the beneficiary of any artificial advantages.