Afghanistan 2005 Elections

Tegenwoordig schijn ik "Afghanistan deskundige" te zijn omdat ik de afgelopen vijf maanden in Afghanistan ben geweest. Ik word dan ook keer op keer om mijn mening gevraagd over het sturen van Nederlandse troepen naar Uruzgan. Nou, ik ben voor.

De provincie Badghis is qua veiligheidssituatie niet te vergelijken met Uruzgan, maar qua infra-structuur des te meer. In beide provincies is dus niets. Nada, njente, niets. Geen wegen, geen bruggen, weinig scholen (met name voor meisjes), weinig ziekenhuizen enzovoorts, enzovoorts.

In Badghis zit een Spaans Provinciaal Reconstructie Team. Ik was erg blij met hun aanwezigheid tijdens mijn verblijf in Qala-i-Naw. De PRT stond garant voor een zekere stabiliteit en veiligheid in de regio. Mede dankzij hen waren we in staat de parlementsverkiezingen te organiseren in Badghis.
Momenteel zijn de Spanjaarden druk bezig met het bouwen van wegen en bruggen in Badghis. Ook NGO's hebben hun weg gevonden naar Badghis.

Here I am, sitting in the JEMBS office in Kabul, on my last day in Afghanistan, chatting and joking with some friends, when the bomb explosion gets us straight upright. It is scary, and it feels like a bomb exploded in the middle of the compound.

When we go out we see that the explosion must have been right in front of the office. Dark smoke is coming from outside the compound.

The final, final results of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections are still not on the web, but the preliminary totals indicate that the country's new legislature can be dominated by politicians who not necessarily are supportive to President Karzai.

On October 23, Afghanistan's Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) announced that a provisional tally of the votes cast in the September 18 election had been completed.
The JEMB said that final, certified results would be released by the end of October. No date has yet been set for the parliament's first session, but a
source within the president's office indicated that legislators would probably
convene in mid December.

After the retrieval of the ballot boxes, we had to count all the ballot papers. It was a lot of work. In the Count Center we established 16 count units.
The results of Badghis can be found on www.jemb.org.

Andrey, our Count Officer, is explaining to the governor how the counting process is conducted.

During the days we had sensitive material on the road, an operation center in the election compound was established at provincial level. In that operational center liaison officers from the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police, the governor, the provincial police, the Spanish Provincial Reconstruction Team were present.

The operation center was under the command of the Provincial Election Officer. That's me!

On E-Day the day started at 05.00.

The idea of an operational center is to have all the parties present who have a role to play in the security. In case something happens, coordination is important.

In practice it meant that most of the members were very bored sitting the whole day in our dining room. Luckely there was televison and an internet connection. The provincial operation center was dismantled today.

Photo's of the election day in Badghis, Afghanistan on september 18th, 2005

Election Day will be the 18th of September.

These days we are busy distributing all our polling material to the districts. From the district the material will find their way to the polling centers. The plan is to have all the material in place the 17th of September.

The 18th of September all our 528 polling stations in the 7 districts are expected to open on time, that is 06.00.

Below you will see pictures taken from our Counting Center. The counting Center these days function as a distribution center.

All the District Field Coordinators are back in Qala-i Naw. They identified and trained the polling station staff.

We have 127 district field coordinators. Our total number of polling centers is 173.
Those 173 have a total of 528 polling stations. 60 of these polling stations are especially for Kutchi's.
Every polling station has a staff of 6 people. Our district field coordinators trained a total of 3180 polling station staff.

Now it is time again for more training for the district feld coordinators. After polling, they will come back with there ballot boxes to the count center in Qala-i-Naw. There they will be the ones who will do the counting. Here they are getting a training in counting procedures.

Hier zijn een aantal foto's te zien van de aankomst van materieel.

Afghanistan goes to the polls on Sept. 18 to elect a lower house of parliament and councils in each of its 34 provinces.

Following are some facts and figures about the elections, being held nearly a year after President Hamid Karzai won a five-year term.

Counting is an essential part of elections. In my province we could not find a suitable place for counting. That meant that we had to build our own counting center. As you can see from the pictures, we started from nothing.

This is how the place looked like, before we were building our Counting Center. There was simply nothing. It was an open area next to "Airport Qala-i-Naw". When a plane lands in Qala-i-Naw, the pilot first flies low over the landing strip to chase the donkeys away and to warn the people. The plane goes up in the air again and the second time it will land.

Here are some photo's that Ans took. She will add some comment to the pictures soon.

Het zijn drukke weken geweest op het provinciale verkiezingskantoor in Badghis.
De eerste fase van het verkiezingsproces, het registreren van de kandidaten en de registratie van mensen die zich vorig jaar niet hebben laten registreren, zit erop.

De uiteindelijke kandidatenlijst voor het parlement en de provinciale staten is nu klaar.
Ook hebben we zo'n 25.000 mensen geregistreerd, waaronder meer dan 5.000 kutchi's.

Kutchi's zijn nomaden. Ze wonen in tenten en trekken rond met hun kamelen, geiten en ezels.

Omdat het voor ons (de internationale staf) te gevaarlijk is om diep in de provincie te trekken, hebben we 21 district field coordinators (DFC) in dienst. Deze mensen zijn actief op districts niveau en zijn verantwoordelijk voor de hele verkiezingsadministratie ter plekke.

In Qala-i-Naw is mijn kantoor in dezelfde compound als mijn guesthouse. Dat is aan de ene kant natuurlijk erg gemakkelijk, maar het betekent ook dat je nooit los komt van je werk.

Onderstaande foto's geven een impressie van mijn werk- en leefomstandigheden in Qala-i-Naw.

Als hoofd van het provinciale kantoor heb ik mijn eigen laptop, scanner en printer.

The distance from Herat to Qala-i-Naw is only 150 kilometres but it takes seven hours to arrive in Qala-i-Naw.
The road is very bad, the scenary is beautiful.

We are travelling with 5 cars. In front and in the back of the convoy are cars with armed police men. The car I am travelling in is the second car.