Afghan envoy appeals for 'benefit of the doubt' By Carl Meyer Published March 3, 2010

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Carl Meyer, Embassy

Afghan Ambassador Jawed Ludin

Give us the benefit of the doubt.

That's the message Afghan Ambas-sador Jawed Ludin wants to convey to Canadians after President Hamid Karzai issued a controversial decree two weeks ago giving him potential control of a key elections watchdog in the country.

However, Grant Kippen, the Canadian chair of the Electoral Complaints Commission, has dismissed the ambassador's comments, saying there is no rationale for such a change.

The decree would give the Afghan president the power to appoint the ECC's five members. Previously, the UN appointed three foreign experts to the commission, while the last two were appointed by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Afghanistan Supreme Court.

Mr. Kippen and the rest of the ECC exposed massive voter fraud during the first round of the 2009 presidential elections, and pushed for a second round after investigating ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation. Mr. Karzai was re-elected in a runoff vote a few months later, despite the fact his opponent had dropped out of the race for fear the vote wouldn't be fair and free.

After the elections, Mr. Karzai stressed the need to clean up corruption in his government. Mr. Ludin insisted that the decree should not be taken as a sign the president is going back on his word. Rather, he said the Canadian public should give the Afghan government "the benefit of the doubt where possible."

"A certain action, a certain issue, a certain phenomenon may not appear understandable or straightforward to the Canadian public," the ambassador said. "But they have to allow a degree of understanding that things are very different."

Repeating an argument already voiced by his president, Mr. Ludin said "foreigners" outside the ECC "played a very negative role" in last year's presidential elections. He suggested that the process of Afghanization might therefore build public trust in the country.

"I assure you, it's not necessarily a bad thing for the freedom, transparency and fairness of the election for this complaints commission to be Afghanized," he said.

"In one way, it would help the integrity of the process if it's Afghans. Even if it goes wrong, it would be Afghans who would be responsible."

Mr. Ludin repeatedly stressed that Mr. Karzai is "keenly aware that he cannot achieve any of his goals without the international community," and that therefore "the absolute last thing that President Karzai should want is for the next elections to be marred, to be problematic, to be questionable."

He added that the international community can still play an oversight role without necessarily having people on the commission, but that the Afghan government is in a "transition period."

"The ECC was never going to remain a body with an international presence," the ambassador said.

Mr. Ludin acknowledged that "there is a general environment of suspicion" when it comes to the decree.

"To some extent it's understandable given the previous elections," he said. "But the better thing would be for the international community to not just criticize us, or presume things about the future.... I think that it's absolutely presumptuous to say that he wants to rig the elections."

Mr. Kippen has been supporting democracies for more than 30 years and was chairman of the ECC in Afghanistan during elections in 2005. Despite Mr. Ludin's explanations, he doesn't see any justification for the decree.

"To amend the election law without any objective analysis or evaluation is like throwing mud against the wall; some stuff sticks and some stuff doesn't," said Mr. Kippen.

"You're blindly thinking that because you're going to Afghanize the ECC or change the criteria of which candidates can be nominated...that somehow this is going to correct the problems last year, and that's just not the case."

Mr. Kippen didn't see how Mr. Karzai's decree would build up public confidence among Afghans, which "took a major hit last year." He said the presidential election cost $400 million, but that only one-third of the population voted, with turnout as low as five per cent in areas like Kandahar and Helmand.

"Granted there were problems of security that had an impact on that turnout, but I think a lot of people knew what was going on, and simply voted with their feet."

Mr. Kippen said he doesn't think Afghans care whether the ECC is Afghanized or not.

"I think what they want is an institution that works. And when they saw that it worked last year, we got a lot of feedback from Afghans, from candidates, about the work that we did," he said.

"An Afghan institution that did its job should be held up as an example of the way it should be working, and now you're going after the very institution that did its job there. I think it's very shortsighted."

cmeyer@embassymag.ca