IEC SAYS "YES WE CAN" FOR AUGUST 20 ELECTION DATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L KABUL 000435 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/01/2019 TAGS: KDEM PREL PGOV AF SUBJECT: IEC SAYS "YES WE CAN" FOR AUGUST 20 ELECTION DATE Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Valerie Fowler, Reasons 1.5 ( b) and (d) ¶1. (C) The morning after President Karzai's ambiguous decree on the date of the presidential election (text septel),the leadership of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) remained firmly committed to August 20, 2009 for voting day. Senior IEC Commissioner Dr. Azizullah Ludin told PolCouns on March 1 he is focused on the "legitimacy" of the electoral process, a clear reference to the IEC's consistent analysis that constitutional provisions calling for a universal franchise outweigh other, contradictory articles. Ludin will convoke his six fellow Commissioners to study the officially-transmitted copy of the decree and formulate a response. Ludin said he welcomed the USG statement in response to Karzai's decree. ¶2. (C) Dr. Daoud Ali Najafi, the IEC's Chief Technical Officer and the source of the recommendations the Commissioners will consider, likewise pledged the IEC will stick by the rationale of universal franchise, logistics, and security that led it on January 29 to announce an August 20 date. Najafi said the IEC will wait a few days to see the reaction of political leaders and then calibrate its first public statement on the February 28 presidential decree -- perhaps at its next regularly-scheduled Thursday press conference. ¶3. (C) Zekria Barakzai, Najafi's deputy and the electoral leadership's number-two Pashtun, repeated earlier assurances that the IEC will "study" the decree and then announce that the election date remains August 20. He suggested the study might take as long as ten days, a slightly longer time frame than Najafi's estimate. He appreciated the USG statement. "With your support," Barakzai said, "we will say 'yes we can' to an August 20 election date." DELL