Seventh coordination meeting with election stakeholders

The Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) hosted the Seventh Coordination Meeting between Election Stakeholder Institutions such as Independent Election Commission, Electoral Complaints Commission, and Central Statistics Organization. The goals of the meeting were to improve the coordination and cooperation among the above-mentioned institutions, identify the challenges and problems laying ahead the elections, and receive information on their actions in the upcoming elections. First, Dr. Rafiullah Bidar pointed to the electoral commission's decision to use the biometric system on Election Day that the Afghan government has provided funding to the Independent Election Commission. They said that it was expected to practically provide the equipment with its server, which until now most parts of the technology have entered Afghanistan and are available to the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC), and according to time frame determined by the Independent Election Commission, by 4 September all biometric devices and its accessories are supposed to be shipped into Afghanistan. Then, the representative of the Electoral Complaints Commission, Mr. Nazari, provided information on the violations of the campaign period and added that totally 142 cases have been received which (89) cases of them have been decided and 23 more cases are remaining. Afterwords, the representative of the Department of Civil Population Registration pointed out the mechanism for identifying fake and repetitious TIDs, and said it is very difficult for the administration to prevent faking and publishing fake Tazkeras. In addition, the Office was tasked, on the basis of the President’s instructions to distribute (10) million citizenship Tazkeras for the citizens and has so far been able to distribute around five million and six hundred the Tazkeras for citizens of the country. The Central Statistics Organization, has been tasked under the direction of the presidential office, to provide technical assistance to the IEC, with a view to training and using biometric devices to those employees of the Independent Election Commission who are tasked to utilize the biometrics in registration of the voters on Election Day.