PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTION UPDATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 003443

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/26/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL AF
SUBJECT: PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTION UPDATE

Classified By: PolCouns Annie Pforzheimer, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: Although preliminary Provincial Council
results for 30 of the 34 Provinces have been released, no
final results have been certified because the Electoral
Complaints Commission (ECC) has not been able to finalize its
investigations. The ECC is working to investigate 630
"priority A" fraud allegations in the Provincial Council
elections, using trusted Provincial Electoral Complaint staff
to do these investigations nationwide. They were not getting
any cooperation from the IEC until an October 27 Elections
Steering Committee meeting brought the Independent Electoral
Commission (IEC) into line. The Embassy is engaging
specifically on whether this lack of cooperation could cause
violence in Nangarhar Province as a result of well-documented
large scale fraud on the part of Karzai associates there.
End Summary.

Fraud and Investigations
--------------


2. (C) Peter Lepsch, Legal Advisor to the ECC, told us on
October 24 that the ECC investigations into fraud in
Provincial Council elections are moving quickly in those
provinces where the ECC has received IEC preliminary results
for the purpose of comparison. He said that the ECC has
received 630 "priority A" complaints for Provincial Council
elections (complaints that could affect the outcome of a
Provincial Council elections). They had received about 1500
additional complaints that refer to simple electoral offenses
that would not have had any real effect on the outcome and
almost 900 that had nothing to do with an electoral offense.
According to Lepsch, incoming complaints frequently have
little corroborating evidence or supporting detail. When the
ECC goes back to complainants to request additional
information, the complainants generally are flummoxed that
the ECC does not simply take them at their word, especially
if they are a community opinion leader.


3. (C) The ECC's goal is to have all 630 priority A
complaints adjudicated by November 6. Mr. Lepsch expected to
be able to accomplish this even if complaints about
preparations for the Presidential run-off begin pouring in,
as long as they can keep some "helpers" from IFES until
completion. We conveyed the Embassy's recommendation that
the ECC delay the release of their Provincial Council
adjudications until the day after the November 7 run-off to
avoid any possible backlash or unrest in advance of the
run-off. Mr. Lepsch agreed to take this message back to the
Commissioners. The ECC hopes to have all PC and Presidential
complaints, including those generated in the run-off,
completed by the end of November.


4. (C) The ECC is relying on its provincial staff, located in
provincial capitals in Electoral Complaints offices, to
investigate complaints in the Provincial Council elections.
Lepsch estimated that about two-thirds of these local staff
were "fantastic" and felt confident that they were up to the
task of being the sole investigators, without the oversight
of international ECC staff from headquarters.


5. (C) In those offices where staff are less than stellar,
the ECC plan is to send the best teams from other provinces
or trusted local staff from headquarters to help. When asked
about questions of staff corruption, Lepsch reiterated that
the Commissioners had faith in the majority of the provincial
staff but would act immediately to address any evidence of
wrongdoing on the part of a staff member during the course of
these investigations. In the cases where they already know
of impropriety, they will keep those staff on only until
after the run-off. Up until then, their investigations are
overseen by strong ECC staff from other provinces. Lepsch
estimated that they only had problems with 20-24 provincial
staff. When asked if the four provinces with unreleased
results also had the most questionable provincial ECC staff,
Lepsch said that actually was not the case. While there was
evidence of impropriety on the part of ECC staff in Kandahar,
there was none in Nangarhar.


6. (C) Lepsch explained that fraud in the Provincial Council
elections has been much more labor-intensive than in the
Presidential election to discern as it is smaller in scale
and involves a much larger field of candidates. Similarly,
in the Presidential election, Karzai's fraud was easier to
catch than Abdullah's because Karzai's people were so greedy
their fraud was obvious. Abdullah's people, in contrast,
just topped off boxes rather than, for example, trying to
stuff 1400 ballots into one box. They scattered around much
smaller amounts of fake ballots and so probably got away with
much more in the end by avoiding the triggers of a
time-strapped IEC and ECC. Provincial Council fraud, he
said, is similar in nature to Abdullah's: lots of small
deals made in multiple districts, a few ballots scattered

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around here and there.

The IEC Makes It All Harder
--------------


7. (C) Adding to the difficulties of timely completion of
complaints adjudication by the ECC is the fact that the IEC
will not release any of their data privately to the ECC. The
IEC has released their preliminary election results in one
large PDF file on their website for 30 out of 34 provinces.
Lepsch added that the ECC could not fully investigate any
complaints in the four provinces for which PC results have
not yet been released; Ghazni, Kandahar, Paktika and
Nangarhar; because the IEC did not pass them any data at all
on these provinces until the issue was raised at an October
27 Elections Steering Committee. Prior to this recent
release of data, the ECC had had to wait like everyone else
for a public release of IEC preliminary results.


8. (C) Lepsch also noted that, IEC staff entered many
Presidential and Provincial Council results that should never
have been entered. These were entries from tally sheets that
came to the IEC in tamper-evident bags that had obviously
been tampered with or tally sheets that were sent in without
the tamper-evident bag at all. Instead of immediately
quarantining these polling stations, IEC staff, in many
cases, simply entered the tallies as written on the enclosed
sheets. Lepsch was ambivalent about assigning blame or
guessing what percentage was due to intentional fraud on the
part of IEC staff versus incompetence.

Possible Violence in Nangarhar As a Result
--------------


9. (C) The lack of IEC cooperation and/or incompetence is of
specific concern in Nangarhar as a large group of Provincial
Council candidates there are alleging major fraud on the part
of the candidates who claim to have won. All of the
allegedly fraudulent winners are Karzai associates with
reputations for raqueteering and drug trafficking. These
Karzai associates have been leaking the results that favor
them and threatening local businessmen with their impending
leadership takeover. The candidates alleging fraud are in
turn threatening to cause street demonstrations and other
civil unrest if the Karzai associates are declared by the IEC
to be winners. PRT Nangarhar estimates that the candidates
threatening civil unrest can deliver on their promise and
that they will not understand the distinction between
preliminary results and certified results. PRT Nangarhar is
therefore very concerned about the possibility of violence in
Nangarhar if the IEC announces preliminary results before the
ECC is given an opportunity to investigate.


10. (C) On October 27 Dr. Najafi of the IEC announced at the
Elections Steering Committee that he had decided that morning
to give the order to publish the preliminary Provincial
Council results for Ghazni, Nangarhar, Kandahar, and Paktika
on their website. When we expressed concern about this
decision possibly leading to violence in Nangarhar and asked
that it be held off until the ECC could complete its
investigation and the preliminary results could be agreed
upon between the IEC and ECC, Dr. Najafi irritably agreed to
pull back his order. We, the Swiss, and UNDP ELECT
additionally asked that the IEC consider the security
implications of some of its releases of information and
perhaps give ANSF and UNDP ELECT an alert 24 to 48 hours
before they make such a move in the future. Dr. Najafi chose
to take this request as a swipe at his agency's credibility
and crossly replied that all the complaints for the
Provincial Council elections were the same as for the
Presidential elections because the fraud occurred at the same
polling stations so there was no need for an additional ECC
investigation. When Margie Cook of UNDP ELECT again tried to
explain our points to him, Najafi said angrily "I understand.
You have nothing to worry about, the ECC is here."


11. (C) The IEC then agreed later that day, after a month of
not responding to similar requests by the ECC, to privately
provide the ECC with their preliminary data on the four
unreleased provinces. Now that the ECC has this data, they
can determine if they need to open any ballot boxes and
complete their investigations. The ECC Commissioners will
decide around October 29 if they will give the IEC permission
to certify final Provincial Council results as they, the ECC,
complete each provincial investigation or whether they will
require the IEC to wait until all ECC investigations are done.
EIKENBERRY