Afghan Youth Debates: Call for Effective Election Monitoring

Up to 700 observers will be hired to monitor the voting in the eastern Khost province during presidential and provincial elections next April, the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) has announced.

Juma Gul Hamdard, a spokesman for FEFA in Khost, told an audience of around 100 local students at an IWPR-backed debate on December 19 that his organisation was committed to tackling election fraud and had successfully resolved a number of issues surrounding voter registration in the province.

Hamdard said he was pleased with ongoing efforts to monitor the April elections, even though plans were in place to cover only seven of the province's 13 districts.

"We are committed to effective observation,” he told students in the audience, after some of them expressed doubt about FEFA’s neutrality. "There have been some problems, which we quickly reported to FEFA’s central office. After action was taken, those problems were resolved.”

Rahim Gul Nayel is a university student in Khost province, Afghanistan.

This report was produced as part of Open Minds: Speaking Up, Reaching Out – Promoting University and Youth Participation in Afghan Elections, an IWPR initiative funded by the US embassy in Kabul.