After a wave of outspoken candidates disqualified from running in the spring elections by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) expressed disapproval of the IEC and its vetting process, questions about the methodology that was taken in determining which candidates were eligible and which weren't intensified on Thursday.
Presidential candidates that were cut by the IEC on Tuesday as well as civil society institutions spoke out against the IEC, suggesting the process of determining the qualifications of the 10 approved candidates and the disqualifications of the other 16 was arbitrary, perhaps biased, and lacked transparency.
The list released by the IEC three-days behind schedule surprised many by having cut over half of the registered candidates. Commission officials explained that the drastic reduction was largely on account of candidates failing to meet the heightened standards of nomination in place this year, including the submission of 100,000 voter cards from supporters from around the country.
Reportedly, there were errors that evident in the documentation of voter cards when IEC verified the candidates' submissions with its database. The IEC had announced that consequently a certain margin of error in the submissions would be forgiven for the candidates.
"According to the information we received from the IEC, the Election Commission decided to ignore ten percent of the legal requirements in the documents of the ten candidates who made the preliminary list, but later on, after consultations, the ten percent increased to 30 percent," said civil society activist Ajmal Baloch Zada.
If accurate, the claims of Zada and others would mean the ten candidates that are still eligible for the spring elections, who were for the most part all prominent names and favored contenders before the list was announced on Tuesday, did not actually meet the required 100,000 voter card threshold required by law yet were still approved by the IEC.
Where the real controversy for the critics of the IEC emerges, however, is over the issue of what percentage of flawed voter cards error the IEC chose to tolerate. Disqualified candidates as well as civil society activists have said the amount of leniency afforded by the IEC was determined arbitrarily, and perhaps with political bias, allowing only certain candidates and not others to make the list.
Yet IEC officials, in response to these claims, have said that in the end no leniency – neither 10 percent nor 30 percent – was taken into account and the candidates who made the list did in fact meet the full 100,000 voter card standard without fail.
"We have considered all essential criteria about these ten people and were not flexible on any of the candidates," said IEC Secretariat head Ziaul Haq Amarkhail on Thursday.
Nevertheless, the transparency of the IEC's process remains an issue as nobody other than itself can verify whether or not leniency was applied.
Officials of the Afghan Free and Fair Election Foundation (FEFA) were uneasy about the decisions of the IEC in part because they were denied the ability to observe the vetting process, which would have allowed them to corroborate what strategy and methodology the IEC used in its determinations.
"We don't understand under what conditions and according to what strategy the IEC scrutinized the documents of the election candidates because our observers weren't present during the document assessment process," said Nader Naderi, the head of FEFA.
FEFA officials urged the IEC to be more transparent in the rest of the process in order to maintain the legitimacy of the election process.
Disqualified candidates were also dismayed at what they considered the opacity of the IEC's evaluations, some suggesting there was meddling by the current government involved.
"There was no transparency during the scrutiny of election candidates' documents," said would-be candidate Sayed Ishaq Gilani. "Deals were made and its clear President Karzai had a role the preparation of this list."
Although candidates that were cut on Tuesday are legally afforded the right to appeal the IEC's decision by filing a complaint to the Electoral Complaints Commission, it is not clear whether or not any plan to do so.
For now, the IEC's preliminary list stands. The next round of potential cuts won't be made public until mid November, with the IEC's timeline listing the 16th as the date it will release the final list of eligible candidates for the April vote.