Civil society disowns Ayubzada as its rep

KABUL groups on Tuesday disowned Mohammad Naeem Ayubzada as their representative for the selection committee that has been tasked with recommending Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) candidates to the president. 

A day earlier, selection body spokesman and Senate Chairman Fazal Hadi Muslimyar told Pajhwok Afghan News with the nomination of Ayubzada, the committee had started working on finalising IECC probables. He promised they would soon introduce 15 individuals to the president, who would choose five of them as IECC members.

Nine Independent Election Commission (IEC) members, named by the body, have already been approved by President Hamid Karzai in line with a new election law, which was passed in mid-July.

The committee includes parliamentary speakers, the chief justice, a civil society representative, human rights campaigners and other officials. Due to differences, civil society failed to name its representative in time.

Muslimyar told Pajhwok Afghan News the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA), Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) and civil society had finally agreed on Ayubzada’s nomination.

But Matin Azaryun, a member of the civil society working committee, told reporters in Kabul they continued to support FEFA chief Nader Naderi for the job. 

He accused the selection body of including Ayubzada, a Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA), in an undemocratic manner. “Ayubzada’s inclusion in the body shows the government’s mala fide intentions about the polls.”

The working committee represented 1,200 civil society groups that denounced the selection body’s decision as “selfish and undemocratic”, he remarked. They did not recognise the civil society representative in the selection body, he reiterated.

Azaryun asked the president and his international supporters to honour their commitment to IECC members’ transparent selection and supporting civil society. “If the government continues to disregard democratic norms and sticks to selective principles, we will resort to civil disobedience,” he warned.

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