:: home   
 
   UN documents


   non-UN documents

   

Mr. President,

Distinguished members of the Council,

Thank you for this opportunity to brief the Council once again on the situation in Afghanistan. You have before you the report of the Secretary-General, which describes developments since March 2005 and also attempts to provide a preliminary assessment of the implementation of the Bonn agreement so far. With a little over 3 weeks before polling day, let me begin by providing you with an update on election preparation and a number of related developments.

[Electoral process]

The electoral campaign was officially launched last week, on 17 August, and candidates have begun canvassing support throughout the country with posters, rallies and media announcements. The campaign period is governed by the Electoral Law and regulations from the Joint Electoral Management Body, which protect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, but place restrictions on speeches and materials that incite violence or religious and ethnic hatred. The campaign is monitored by international observers from the European Union and other international and Afghan electoral observers. For their part, the Afghan Human Rights Commission and UNAMA will continue to verify the exercise of political rights by candidates and citizens throughout that period.

Providing a level playing field to candidates has been a permanent concern since last year’s presidential election and is a particularly difficult undertaking this year in a competition involving 5,800 candidates. The completion of DDR has helped and so has the disqualification of a number of candidates with linkages to armed groups. The latest report of the Afghan Human Rights Commission and UNAMA shows improvement with regard to the conduct of government officials but also lingering fear of intimidation in the citizenry.

A sponsored advertisement programme, is being implemented through the newly re-convened Electoral Media Commission; it provides candidates with free and equal access to pre-approved radio and television outlets. In addition, candidates have received information packages from the JEMB Secretariat to assist them in understanding their campaign rights. For civic education purposes, one million sample ballots have been produced in the format as the actual ballot. They will allow voters throughout the country to familiarize themselves with what is often a very crowded ballot, with up to over 300 names in the Kabul province.

The final preparation for polling day is ongoing. Some 40 million ballots for the 69 different elections have been produced and are ready for distribution throughout the country. So far, the ballots of eleven provinces have been delivered and the rest will reach the provincial offices by 2 September. Contingency plans are in place with enough surplus materials to address any shortages at the polling stations.

The JEMB Secretariat is in the process of recruiting over 160,000 polling station officials, many of whom are being selected from the pool of staff that worked during the presidential election last year. Training of 130 trainers has just been completed in Kabul. Cascade training will now be implemented for over 6000 district field coordinators who, in turn, will train the polling station officials. In order to ensure equitable access by different minority groups, the recruitment and training specifically accounts for women, nomads and disabled groups.

The Secretariat of the JEMB has been working with national and international security bodies to establish the final security and force deployment plan for polling day. With over 6,300 polling centers identified, some 30,000 Afghan National Police will be required to secure the first ring around polling sites, counting centers, JEMB compounds, and to allow for a quick reaction force. International military forces surge capacity has arrived in Afghanistan with contingents from Spain, Romania, the Netherlands and the US, and will be deployed as a backup to national forces. In this respect, I would like to pay tribute to the 17 soldiers of the Spanish contingent who died in a helicopter accident on 16 August and also express our gratitude to the Spanish government who is sending new troops and aircraft in order to secure the electoral process. The day-to-day management of field operations and security coordination is taking place in the Joint Electoral Operations Centre, which commenced operations last week, with the participation of the Ministries of Interior and Defense, the National Directorate of Security, ISAF and the Coalition Forces, as well as the JEMB Secretariat.

[Calendar after polling day]

Mr. President,

Allow me to also provide a preview of key electoral events immediately after polling day.

On 20 September, the JEMB will begin the counting of ballots, which is expected to be completed by 4 October, before the start of Ramadan. Dedicated counting centers have been identified in the provincial centers, which provide better security conditions and allow for a broad presence of international and national observers. The JEMB transport plan will ensure that the transfer of ballots from the polling places to the counting centers is protected from manipulation and fraud in the best possible manner. Partial results will be announced by province on a rolling basis as the counting progresses. It is expected that provisional results for all provinces will have been declared by 4 October. This will be followed by a two-week period during which complaints against the process and the provisional results will be adjudicated by the Electoral Complaints Commission. Final results of the elections for the Wolesi Jirga and the provincial councils should be certified towards the end of October.

Following this certification, most likely in the first half of November, each provincial council will elect its representative to the Meshrano Jirga or upper house. This will be done - by secret ballot - on a single day across the country. The President will also appoint 17 members of the upper house based upon nominations from social organizations, political parties and the general public, which will be confirmed by the JEMB to ascertain their eligibility under the Constitution and the Electoral Law. The timetable I have just outlined would culminate with the inauguration of the new National Assembly before the end of the year.

[After the elections]

In anticipation of the first meetings of the National Assembly, the recruitment and training of the 120 staff of the National Assembly Secretariat has been completed and the staff are being placed at foreign parliaments in Italy, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Morocco, Australia, Netherlands, Germany and France. With regard to Provincial councils, last week the Government adopted the legislation that grants the Councils an essentially advisory role to the provincial administration, including with regard to government expenditures in the province.

[Electoral funding]

I should take this opportunity to brief the Council on an important and necessary adjustment to the earlier indicative electoral budget: over the past few days, the JEMB Secretariat, in consultation with UNAMA, has informed that the originally projected resource requirements of USD 149 million had to be revised to USD 159 million. The USD 10 million increase is largely attributable to an increase in polling and counting cost due to higher ballot production and transportation requirements. After various ballot designs were tested to ensure their suitability for an electorate with a low literacy rate, the option eventually adopted was a large tabloid-like ballot, with up to seven pages in the case of Kabul province. However, it implied highly complex and expensive ballot printing requirements; the format and size of the ballots have, in turn, led to the need for much larger ballot boxes than those used in 2004; and the sheer weight and volume of these supplies has multiplied the requirements ten-fold in terms of transportation and distribution. I should be grateful if the Security Council would join us in requesting urgently the international community to fill the funding gap, which stands now at USD 29.6.

[Security]

Mr. President,

The report of the Secretary-General addresses in detail our concerns regarding the deteriorating security situation in the months of June and July - a topic I also emphasized in my briefing to the Council on 24 June. These concerns have not abated since the report was completed. After a drop in the number of incidents in late July and early August, attacks have resumed with increased intensity in the South, East and Southeast, with ambushes and IEDs remaining the tactics of choice of the extremists, with deadly effect. In recent days, a large number of IEDs have been laid in Kandahar city. In a serious incident on 17 August, a bus of the Afghan National Police was targeted, leaving one ANP officer dead and eleven wounded. Fighting between anti-government elements and national and international military forces also continues to result in high casualties. Attacks against community leaders – a feature that was not present last year – have also resumed, and the killing of two moderate mullahs last week brings to at least eight the number of clerics.

Against this background, the number of attacks against UN staff have decreased compared to last year and those against the electoral process – candidates and electoral workers - have been, in the main, indirect rather than direct. This may indicate that extremists, perhaps wiser from last year’s experience with the presidential election, have decided to target pro-government and international forces rather than to try and stop the parliamentary election. However, it is too soon to rule out attempts at causing major disruptions of the election before, during or after polling day. In addition, increased insecurity in the provinces along the eastern border is, in itself, a cause for concern for the elections in these areas. In the report, published yesterday, of their findings concerning the exercise of political rights in the past couple of months, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and UNAMA have noted, and I quote, “Despite the fact that extremists have failed to derail the process or pressure candidates to withdraw, the possibility exists that the threat of violent attacks will have an impact on the campaign process and on election day, potentially disenfranchising large parts of the Pashtun population.”

[Post-Bonn]

Mr. President,

While developments on the security front are a reminder of the hurdles that Afghans face in rebuilding their country, we are confident that, by the end of this year, a representative new National Assembly will be established and that , with it, the Bonn process will be successfully completed. Looking back, as the report of the Secretary-General does, to the successive stages of the political transition since 2001, this is indeed a remarkable achievement. It illustrates that against the odds of failed institutions, high levels of militarization and violent extremism, calling upon people to participate – through traditional mechanisms or modern ones - in reshaping their society is a very powerful tool indeed. It is not only giving Afghanistan legitimate institutions, it has also served to drive the process of disarmament; the retooling of security agencies; the creation of political parties; new legislation on media and administrative structures; and the emergence of a culture of political pluralism that rejects the use of violence in the search for political office. This democratic approach is also generating new popular expectations vis-à-vis the government and elected officials, and more demanding criteria by which they will be judged.

In doing so, it is also shaping, to a large extent, the contents of the post-Bonn agenda. Security is paramount, and bringing extremist violence and other forms of insecurity under control will remain at the top of the agenda for the government, and for millions of Afghans for whom the most basic dividend of peace – security – remain a distant goal even as the Bonn process draws to a close. The strengthening of key state institutions – police, justice and civilian administration – will have to catch up with progress made in the creation of the ANA and become tangible where it is most needed: at local level. What has been so far an array of reconstruction interventions will have to come together into a comprehensive development strategy that can maximize the use of Afghanistan’s economic assets and create a reliable revenue base for the state. Steady progress in the elimination of the narcotics industry will remain a key goal, on which progress in so many other areas is predicated.

We are encouraged to see that the international community appears committed to work with the Government of Afghanistan towards an extended compact around some key benchmarks and timelines for the achievement of the objectives mentioned above. In the next phase, international financial, technical and security resources will remain indispensable complements to the Afghan State’s own political will and fiscal effort. In this respect, the government of Afghanistan has approached UNAMA and other international partners with the proposal that a high-level conference on the post-Bonn compact be held during the second half of January, shortly after the anticipated inauguration of the National Assembly, which should be adequately involved in this process.

We are particularly keen to see closer links between Afghanistan and its neighbours in all fields – including security cooperation, trade, development and counter-narcotics. As a land-locked country, Afghanistan’s long-term stability and the sustainability of its development are inextricably linked to the stability and the prosperity of the region at large.

For his part, immediately after the election, the Secretary-General will initiate consultations with President Karzai and the government of Afghanistan as well as other concerned stakeholders, with a view to defining the role of the UN in the post-Bonn period.

_______________