Although voting for Presidential and Provincial Council elections doesn't begin for another six months, Tuesday's announcement of the preliminary list of eligible candidates had some winners as well as losers. A number of disqualified candidates have since come out in frustration to question the decisions of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and launch a litany of accusations.
The IEC's announcement on Tuesday night came after a three-day delay from when it was originally intended to release the list of candidates that would be allowed to contest elections in April. What the Commission did publicize was shorter than many expected, with no less than 16 of the 26 registered Presidential candidates being cut and nearly 400 of the roughly 3,000 Provincial Council candidates trimmed.
Although most were unsurprised by the list, which included what the general public and media had suspected would be the frontrunners, on Wednesday many of those who didn't see their names approved expressed grievances, cried foul and launched allegations against the IEC for everything from political bias and corruption to negligence and incompetence.
Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi, a Presidential candidate who failed to make the list on Tuesday, said that he had no idea on what grounds he was disqualified. He claimed he had submitted his nomination in exact accordance to the law and was an Afghan national with no citizenship in any other country.
"If the election commission is unaware of my citizenship then it is really shameful and confirms their negligence and irresponsibility, because it's inexplicable," said Ahadi on Wednesday.
According IEC officials, the two primary reasons for disqualifications this year were either candidates failing to meet the thresholds of nomination, which, in the case of the Presidential race and the 100,000 supporting voter cards needed, were significantly higher than in past years, or their having dual-citizenship.
Bismillah Sher, another Presidential candidate who was disqualified on Tuesday, said the IEC's process was politically motivated and the Commission made its decisions based on the guidance of the government. He indicated he would not give in to the IEC's ruling without a fight, and intended to pursue legal recourse.
"I will use all my energy and look to the Afghan nation, to the law and civil society institutions...I will pursue the case through legal means," said Sher.
The IEC rejected the claims made by the aggrieved candidates and maintained that they did not meet criteria laid out by the Commission for eligibility. However, officials noted that those disqualified on Tuesday hold the right to submit a complaint to the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) regarding the decisions made by the IEC. The ECC's ruling on any complaints, if in contradiction to the original decision of the IEC, could land a candidate back in the race.
Some of the candidates suggested the IEC's disqualifications undermined the broader legitimacy of the spring elections, which has been a topic of major concern for Afghan and foreign officials alike with the withdraw of coalition forces lying just around the corner in December of next year.
Charged with making sure the elections run well enough so as to set up the still fledgling Afghan government as good as possible for the country's first years without a foreign troop presence in over a decade, the IEC refused to budge on its decisions regarding the candidates despite the onslaught it saw on Wednesday.
"This is the first time in the history of Afghanistan that members of the Election Commission, including the head of the Secretariat, had no access to the [candidate] names," said IEC Secretariat Chief Sia-ul-Haq Armarkhail, defending the integrity of the Commission's decision making process. "We only used the codes and made our decision on the basis of these codes, not individuals," he said referring to the vetting process the IEC used to verify criteria met by the candidates.
Armarkhail added that the ECC's assessment of complaints against candidates that did make the list on Tuesday could also lead to their disqualification.
Still, the abundance of peeved election hopefuls was overwhelming. And their theories about the IEC's compromised process, at times, quite damning.
"The smart youth were removed from the list and the powerful warlords, armed men and uneducated that put pressure on the Commission remained," claimed Zahir Alokozai, a would-be Provincial Council candidate from Kabul.
Not all the candidates responded with accusations and denunciations, though. Qayyum Karzai made the Presidential list released by the IEC on Tuesday, but his Second Vice President running mate Mohammad Ibrahim Qasimi was eliminated for holding Canadian citizenship. Qasimi accepted the IEC's ruling, and brushed it off, saying that his ticket worked as a team and he would continue to campaign for Karzai.