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Afghanistan

The provisional candidate list, July 2, 2005

On June 4, the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) issued the Preliminary Candidate List, and from June 4 to June 9 individuals had the opportunity to file a challenge against any prospective candidate with the Electoral Complaints Commission.
The ECC received over 1138 challenges against 556 candidates.

Citizens from across Afghanistan exercised their right to participate in this process and the broad public response was an encouraging sign of the Afghan people's desire to hold a fair election.

After reviewing the challenges, the ECC has advised the JEMB of 233 candidates who must be provisionally disqualified from standing for office due to their failure to meet the requirements for candidacy.

Today, the JEMB is issuing a Provisional Candidate List which incorporates the recommendations of the ECC. This List is available to the public at JEMB Provincial Offices throughout Afghanistan. Please note that this is only a Provisional List and prospective candidates not on this list may still be able to stand for office if they fulfill the candidacy requirements.

Prospective candidates who are provisionally excluded - and are therefore not on the List - should visit their provincial JEMB offices to obtain information regarding the reason they may be disqualified and to file a response to their provisional exclusion.

Response Forms may be filed between July 2 and July 7 at either a JEMB provincial office or directly with the ECC in Kabul.

Prospective candidates who have been provisionally excluded because they have not yet resigned from a government post may still resign, but they must provide written proof of their resignation and its acceptance by their employers.

There were many challenges alleging that a candidate had committed serious crimes. Unfortunately, the ECC was unable to act on most of these allegations due to a lack of evidence of a criminal record or criminal conviction.

Some prospective candidates have been provisionally excluded from the Candidate List because they have been found to be in violation of Article 35 (d) of the Electoral Law and identified by the Joint Secretariat of the Disarmament and Reintegration Commission as having ties to an illegal armed group. If the ECC does not receive confirmation from the Joint Secretariat that these individuals have severed their links with armed groups through full disarmament by July 7, they may be excluded from the Final Candidate List.

These candidates should address any questions or concerns about the disarmament process to their respective provincial disarmament committee or the Joint Secretariat of the Disarmament and Reintegration Commission.

These prospective candidates also have the right to file a formal response to the ECC between July 2 and July 7 in the provincial offices of the JEMB. ECC Response Forms and further information on the response process are available at the ECC's website, www.ecc.org.af.

The ECC will consider all responses before making a final decision to exclude an individual from the Final Candidate List, which the JEMB is expected to certify on July 12.

We hope that these processes will ensure that Afghanistan's elections are fair and genuinely democratic.

For more information, please contact:
info@ecc.org.af or mahlomat@ecc.org.af
Tel.: 070 222 892 or 079 318 881
Fax: 070 106 175