Fighting Fraud in Afghanistan's Elections

By ANAND GOPAL

KABUL -- Afghanistan's presidential election next week is proving to be a complicated exercise in democracy. A raging insurgency threatens to close voting centers. Some of the 38 candidates maintain ties to armed militias. Others have threatened violence if they lose. And reports of widespread fraud endanger the poll's credibility.

It is Grant Kippen's job to keep the process honest. Mr. Kippen heads the Electoral Complaints Commission, an independent body given the task of receiving complaints about candidates, auditing the process for fraud, and, when necessary, imposing sanctions on violators to try to ensure the vote is as credible as possible.

"It's a challenge, an enormous challenge," Mr. Kippen says. "We expect thousands of complaints and allegations by Election Day. You do your best given the circumstances."

The commission, established in 2005, grew out of the experience of the 2004 Afghan presidential elections, when politicians complained that there was no independent body to deal with accusations of vote stealing and ballot stuffing. It is wholly separate from the Independent Elections Commission, the institution that is organizing and conducting the Aug. 20 polls.

Western officials say the United Nations-funded complaints commission, with nearly 270 people in Kabul and offices in each of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, will be key in trying to ensure the election's success. A vote marred by fraud and irregularities would be a setback in the drive to show the country's political institutions are making progress.

Mr. Kippen, a 54-year-old, mild-mannered native of Ottawa, Canada, is prepared for the role, having spent decades working with political parties and elections. He was an activist with the Canadian Liberal Party, and later worked in the prime minister's office.

In recent years, he was country director for the National Democratic Institute in Afghanistan, a nonprofit organization created by the U.S. government. His work in the last presidential elections caught the eye of U.N. officials, who nominated him to head up the complaints commission in 2005.

"The complaints range from serious allegations of human-rights abuses to cases that have nothing to do with elections," he says. "Most, however, involve the misuse of government resources."

The commission weighs complaints in light of the law governing elections. For example, candidates can't have dual citizenship or ties to illegal militias.

Kate Brooks for The Wall Street Journal

Grant Kippen, head of the Electoral Complaints Commission, at an ECC training session at the Serena hotel in Kabul.

So far, the commission has barred 59 candidates from running for president or for provincial-council seats, 56 of them because of ties to illegally armed groups. The commission also has levied fines: One of President Hamid Karzai's running mates, Karim Khalili, was fined $1,400 for using a government helicopter to attend a campaign rally. Other common infractions include failing to declare campaign finances or holding government offices -- except the presidency -- while campaigning. The complaints are usually brought by members of the public or rival political parties.

Such a process is necessary to keep potentially explosive situations in check, Mr. Kippen says. For instance, the commission is investigating a statement from the camp of Mr. Karzai's chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, that threatened armed opposition if Mr. Karzai won.

"While there are serious complaints, often we get bogged down by less-serious ones because the public doesn't understand the nature of the commission," Mr. Kippen adds. In parliamentary elections a few years ago, a man lodged a complaint because a candidate ran off with his wife.

On Election Day, Mr. Kippen expects most complaints to be serious. Watchdog groups documented many cases of fraud in the voter-registration process. The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, an independent body that Mr. Kippen helped to found, documented irregularities in 85% of the registration centers in one phase of the process. The commission is training its members to spot fraud by checking for proper ID cards and ensuring that voters have their fingers inked to prevent double voting.

Some say the commission can't be truly impartial because it relies on the government for many important decisions. For instance, it relies on the findings of a government body headed by Mr. Khalili, Mr. Karzai's vice-presidential candidate, to determine whether a candidate has ties to an illegally armed group.

"President Karzai has too much power over that process," says Akbar Bai, a presidential candidate who was disqualified because of alleged ties to such groups.

Electoral law also bars candidates who have committed human-rights violations. Human-rights groups have amassed evidence some candidates were involved in violations, but the commission hasn't disqualified any candidate on those grounds. Instead of making an independent assessment, it relies on findings of the government, despite the fact that many powerful figures in the government have been accused of violations themselves, Mr. Bai says.

Jandad Spinghar, of the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, says the commission often doesn't respond to detailed allegations of violations that his agency provides.

"We only have limited capacity to deal with all of these things," Mr. Kippen says. He adds, however, that Afghan democracy is slowly moving in the right direction. "If we can get people to understand that we are building a mechanism for the future," he says, "where one day people will resolve disputes by filing complaints and having debates, instead of trading bullets, we will have done our job."