Friday, Oct. 1, at 10 a.m.

National Democratic Institute

2030 M St., NW, 5th Floor
Washington, D.C.

Three senior members of NDI's observation mission for the Sept. 18 Wolesi Jirga elections will present their views on the conduct of the elections and prospects for an effective tally process going forward, followed by a discussion.

They are:

• Peter Manikas [2], senior associate and director of Asia programs at NDI;
• Grant Kippen, former chairman of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission (2005 and 2009) and former NDI Afghanistan country director; and
• Scott Worden, senior rule of law advisor at the United States Institute of Peace and former commissioner on Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission (2009)

Despite widespread violence on election day, millions of Afghans turned out to vote in the Sept. 18 legislative elections. Many of the voters, candidates and observers were young Afghans, indicating new energy in Afghanistan's democratic development.

However, while preparations by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) were an improvement over last year's flawed presidential and provincial council polls, reports of widespread polling and counting irregularities suggest that a significant amount of fraud may have affected the voting. It will now be up to the IEC and the Electoral Complaints Commission to deal with the fraud allegations.

NDI's ongoing observation mission is analyzing the electoral process before, during and after polling day. The mission, which involves 164 Afghan and international observers throughout the country, began on Aug. 2, and will continue until the certification of results. On election day NDI observers operated in 30 of the country's 34 provinces and visited over 700 polling stations, despite limitations created by the security situation.