The Ministry of Interior (MoI) on Wednesday reported a hike in the national crime rate over the first four months of this year as compared to the same period last year, suggesting the trend was related to the ongoing election process, which has supposedly prevented police around the country from focusing on regular police work.
The comments from Ministry officials have been accompanied by growing concerns among election observers regarding the continued delays facing the election process. Observers have argued the more the process is rearranged and rescheduled the less credibility its final results will have.
According to the Interior Ministry, crime jumped 30 percent in the first four months of 2014 as compared to the same period of 2013.
"The police were on alert from the beginning till the end of the election process. The police were busy in various ways in providing security for polling stations, ballot papers and other things and there is no doubt that the police are involved in this process, so it could have an impact," said Najibullah Danish, the deputy spokesman for the MoI. "If we reach an end to the election results, the police will have the opportunity to engage criminal cases."
Meanwhile, Afghan election monitoring groups have expressed further anxieties about the election process being prolonged. "If this process goes the way it has gone and each time it stops and there is no agreement, certainly, this process will take a long time," Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) spokesman Fahim Naeemi said.
"The concern is not only for the long process, the concern is that if the process is stopped again and again, the results that come out of it will not be acceptable for any of the electoral teams and it will take us back to where we started, meaning we will be faced with political deadlock," said Jandad Ispenghar, Chairman of Afghanistan Election Watch.
The vote auditing process that began nearly two weeks ago was originally expected to be completed in its entirety within three weeks. But with continued delays on account of disagreements between the candidates over the criteria to be used for the invalidation of votes, the election process still has no clear end in sight.
