All right good morning. We'll try to start more or less on time because we have a group of people in Kabul who were keeping up late. A few housekeeping announcements. This event relied on the success of two technologies, aviation technology and communication technology. We'll see in a minute if the communication technology works but I can tell you that the aviation technology has already failed. We had hoped to bring Andrew Wilder and Glenn Cohen fresh from Kabul directly from the airport this morning with the mud of Afghanistan still on their shoes in a dramatic entrance but unfortunately their plane had to return to Dubai last night so I've kindly asked Hamid Arsalan from the National Endowment of Democracy to join us as well and Jed Ober from Democracy International to sort of sit in for Glenn, Peter Manicus who was always on the agenda who was in Kabul just before the election who luckily is part of the original program to be here. So that's the housekeeping thanks to all of you for showing up. I think that without preempting too much of the discussion it was a interesting and surprisingly positive day in Afghanistan over the weekend. We've tried to time this event so that it will be among the earliest impressions. I hope there's enough information to talk about. We'll soon find out but certainly there are indications that I turn out, there are indications that candidates have made certain statements. We'll try to go through all of that and we'll try also to give an impression or a sense of what direction we're going in. Where is this leading and what are the issues that we need to watch out for in the future. The format of this event after I stop talking in about 15 seconds we'll go straight to Kabul. You should be able to see on the screen our four guests there. Shamamud the USIP's country director will introduce the panelists in Kabul. I'll ask them to each speak for about five to seven minutes then I might ask a few questions from a moderators point of view then we'll go straight to this panel and then we'll open it up to you. Technology permitting we expect our guests in Kabul to be here for the full two hours so you will have a chance to ask them specific questions if you want to once we get through all of the panelists and again I think we'll try to be not just a brief and succinct but also not too repetitive. But again that will depend on how much I suppose there is to say at this point which we're about to find out. So Shamamud can you hear us? My goodness okay we can see you. Why don't you go ahead then introduce the panelists on your side and we'll start from Kabul. Okay thank you very much Scott and also good morning to all friends and audiences there. We have our three distinguished panelists here is Nauved Naderi he's chairman of TIPA free and fair election which is observation organization and they have around 10,000 observers in the country and also they released a report today about their observations and also Nargis Mehan she's executive director of equality for peace and democracy and also Najla Ayubi she's assistant she's a deputy director of Asia foundation and also she was a judge and former IEC commissioner before and my son before I just go to my panel I will start with general comments and express my personal views on this election and then each of our panel members will talk for seven minutes. As all of you know in the last three years USIP was the only organization consistently focused in the society on importance of political transition in Afghanistan and also USIP directed at most of their projects to have a peaceful election this country and therefore I would like to thank all our partners interlocutors and they contributed a lot for this election on April 5th which was one of the best days in the country after so many bad news from Afghanistan in the last few years because this election was better than the election 2009 many people turned out according to IEC about 60 percent people participated in the election and also there was a several myths dismissed in this election after one the five Taliban threats show interest in democratization process they came out toward despite that rhythm and demonstrated that Afghans do care about their own future the most slogan I was hearing from the Afghans the Afghans when in Taliban defeated this was a team of the day also I would like to thank you know all the candidates in this election also because they traveled to many parts of the country and they were able to convince the people of Afghanistan you know to come out and vote because they didn't run their campaign just from the behind of the disk or you know just by virtual communication in fact they traveled to most of the insecure you know provinces and they also knew deserve you know to be you know recognize their contribution during election day we observed the election in Kabul and also some of the districts and most of our staff you know they were in Kunduz and also in Lingda house and they reported us and they were also happy about the turnout and participation of the people and when we talked with voters in the polling station most of them they said this election was better than 2009 and there was a logistically it was you know better and also there was a transparency in the process and also in the election they I see take action because they close some of the polling station around the number is a little bit we don't have exact number but around 350 more or less for security reason and also for some fraud and others which was you know they didn't say sit silent and that took action you know the limited result when we just you know received from some of the campaign headquarters from the media reports and from our contacts in the provinces so that's two things that happened in this election one was you know the people it seemed they rejected the status quo and also they rejected the world god's leadership in the country as far as I see from provinces that I am from in Kunal and people just voted for change and somehow and also they wanted to have you know most of the team was on issue basis you know better education better life good governance and so many other things has also contributed in the selection cycle also the confidence of the people on national security institution you know and hence or boosted you know their confidence on the NSF because people now see they are able to protect them and also to provide reasonable security in the country of course there is a lot of challenges existing in the country also there was a you know security incidents happened in the country it was around 400 different kind of incidents happened in the country but still it was a lower than 2010 elections according to some sources from security institutions despite optimism and good turn out and well preparation by IC independent election commission over 3000 complaints are charged by presidential information consult candidates to election complaint commission which is still is a big number Mr. Naderi will talk later on according to their organization 11000 frauds are reported in different parts of the country so I believe the fraud may not damage this messy of the election because of high turnout and people participation as far as I am in contact with readers I've seen in CC individuals I believe they have a determination to review all these complaints seriously and also they gave a press conference the chairman of the IDC and VCC today they just gave a press conference and also they mentioned you know they will truly investigate and bring transparency to the process because this is very important for you know future process in the country if they just you know truly investigate you know these allegations we were just seeing that technology is not working sometimes you're back you're back okay so this is good for the future you know election and also participation of the people if they deal with these fraud or allegation or complaints in transparent way because that is important for the future of democratic process in the country lots I believe the people of one son voted under the high security threat and any criminal rather than in most part of the country get up for the people of one son deserve that the road should be counted because that is a desire of the people and this should happen here and so I believe media organization also played important role in this election in the awareness and civil society and and everybody played that part in this election that was all from my side okay who's uh who's next next another me another mother good to not good to hear you that I can't see you anymore we can see you good morning to to everybody so we had two weeks back a glass half full discussion somewhere in Europe and the survey that we as the free and fair election foundation released uh some two weeks before the election it was indicating that 76 percent of people are intending to participate in elections and a large number of those we have talked to of the country around 92 percent say they prefer a peaceful democratic transition of power to election and therefore they do support elections and it was an overwhelming support a lot of people were looking to these findings with a level of caution and a level of uncertainty or or not taking it immediately what happened on the festival of April has proved most of those skeptical or cynics about outcomes not embracing democracy and also those who were not believing that in the midst of a war in the midst of violence people will go out and vote but we at FIFA now our observation mission believes that despite all the tricks despite all the challenges that were out there the electoral environment on the day of election presented a credible environment for an election this election we think are notably uh uh marked by a notably high voter turnout compared to what we had in 2009 around seven million or over seven million people voted of course there are some fraudulent votes those need to be cleaned up but still this will be this will be a higher percentage we are very much mindful of the irregularities and some of the security challenges that were there that affected some polling stations but we also as an observation organization we believe that the election presented an improved electoral uh uh uh preparation which everybody was expecting in Atlanta to see this election to be a better one an important characteristic of the April 5th election was the higher turnout of women and also main in some of those remote and rural areas which the participation in the previous election was very very low and the higher level of turnout in those places is also one of the important characteristics of of this election uh FIFA election observation mission also noted that the participation of public was much more meaningful this time it was not only to go and cast a vote for a presidential or provincial candidate many people in long queues in a very difficult uh uh uh uh uh uh climatical uh uh uh uh uh uh condition rain and and in some places either snow uh they told our observers that it's not for them to come and just cast a vote for them it means two additional parts also one that they want to show a clear commitment and testimony by their presence in these long queues a commitment to a democratic path to a peaceful path of transition the transfer of power the second one which was also very significant and important people showed a message of defiance to the violence to the terrorists and to the Taliban and with the with this large turnout people clearly say no to the Taliban and of course it's so clear now that it was the Taliban who have lost uh uh against the the the very great will of the of the majority of the public we do see also a higher degree of public engagement we have we witnessed an extensive and live coverage of the voting process from major parts of the country and on on on live minute by minute by a large number of uh traditional media networks and also also social media on election day we also mark uh the the larger number of uh election monitors observers candidates agents all of this created a situation including uh an ability of the election commission to provide information on timely manner uh that this election uh was in many ways more transparent than what we had in 2009-2010 and was also uh therefore uh had a better indicators if not a full three-year fair but a better improvement or improvement toward those those indicators however there are a lot large a long list of irregularities on the day of election we have received uh 10 11 000 of issues that were reported to us out of which we have in the past few days we have looked into carefully and followed up and verified around 2600 of them are issues that need to be carefully looked at it we especially uh presented to uh I ECC and I easy uh issues that are uh of of importance and those are not in in terms of its scale it's not as large as it was in 2009 and again in terms of its nature it's not going to at this stage what we know is not going to significantly affect the result of election one of the the main issues I will present to you of them there are a number of them but I will present to you of them one of the issues that created already uh uh political metrics by different uh uh candidates is the shortage of ballot paper on the election day our observers reported around 7 000 more than 7 000 700 sorry more than 700 stations run out of ballot out of which 270 of them run out of ballot that's around either between 10 and 11 at the early morning there were stations where our observers were not allowed now we have drawn a correlation between observers not allowed and in this 270 polling stations where the ballots ran out in the early morning any calculation will tell you that this is not possible that 600 ballot people would run uh so quickly out in uh and the station to run out of ballot paper uh just in in few hours now we have strictly asked the IECC to to make sure that there's an investigation on those but overall all of these 700 plus polling sites running out of paper people standing for hours on queues waiting for paper to come back uh indicated a good number of people were disenfranchised and therefore we called on IEC that the public deserves both an apology for this but also a proper investigation on what uh uh what was the reasons and what were the decisions and why those decisions were resulted to find out the main causes and independent committee we asked to be formed to investigate that issue now in terms of the major election laws violation and irregularities we have looked into the issues we have seen underage votes uh a large number of underage votes in almost a thousand stations we have observed we've seen around 500 stations where proxy votes on behalf of women were costed and we also seen uh uh intimidations votes of course by the Taliban which affected around 400 station on the day of election to be to be to be closed but we also seen uh intimidation by powerful figures who tried to intimidate both voters and and Nepal workers but the most important one are the ballot staffing we have looked at at least close to 150 polling stations where we documented some of them that where uh boxes were stuffed and and those are subjects for for full investigation all in all with all these issues that exist which we were expecting much more but taking the turnout taking the better preparation uh knowing that the chairman of the election commission has kind of tried to emerge out of this as as a little bit more effective than what was expected and what the people of Afghanistan have demonstrated on that day is presenting both an opportunity for us as absence that the next government will certainly become more accountable because it is a very heavy burden of a popular demand of the public and people will not be quiet and they now understand and know how important their role is and how meaningful their participation will and the second one it's a clear indication of this 12 years or 13 years of this partnership of absence with its international partners I think we all should be proud of what we have achieved and I think those audience sitting this morning in in in Washington should also be proud of this their contribution is clearly there and a democratic Afghanistan where it will try and and and thrive to to become a democratic state if not very soon but at the path to become an institutionalized democracy and I will stop here thank you very much Scott yeah uh hello good morning everybody um thank you so much for this opportunity um I think most of the positive things have been covered by uh my colleagues here but I would like to just uh put a few more on on the positive point and then I will go to some of the concerns that we have uh one of the issues that I would like to highlight here the the presence of the security forces more than 400 security forces including afghan national army afghan national police in afghan um 400 thousand sorry yeah they were out there and they already prepared for the good security for the people who could go and and vote for the for the election this is one of the highlights I would like to mention the second is the as my colleagues mentioned that the the huge participation in the mass participation of the people which 58 percent of the people participated in the election and which is 35 percent of them are a woman which is in the history of our election in the post-colonial this is the first time that we have seen that the woman are participating in in such a mass way um another point that I would like to mention is the people of afghanistan came into the stage just to stay no to violence and they decide that they don't have any alternatives to the election and specifically the peaceful transformation of the power from one government to another one this is also something that is very very promising one more thing I would like to mention that the massive participation of the main and woman in the country and also having huge number of domestic observers and as well as international observers I think this brings more legitimacy to the the new administration and which we didn't have in the 2009 election because we had the participation was low as well as the legitimacy of the government in 2004 2009 was under the under questioning also people were questioning the media took a very huge role in the raising awareness putting the specific preparing specific programs for the for the candidates as well as for the people how they could I mean present their policies and programs for their future administration this will I think the the most issues but one of the issues that I would like to mention as part of the intimidation of the during the election day I would like to make one story from Kabul from for the church area where there was a female reporter from one of the private media organizations she was reporting some of the frauds and some of the violations was made by some of the powerful people and then she was stopped to not report all of these and she was intimidated they were intimidating her and twisted trickling her of because of that she should not report these frauds that this was something that is happening even in Kabul where lots of observers there and also lots of media and others if the callers were there as not as I mentioned about the shortage of the ballot paper and the some of the polling centers I think from technical point of view I think this is very difficult to I mean solve this problem by the by the election commission because we don't have a voter list in the in the provinces in the in the district at the district level and that's why it's very difficult to find I mean to find out whether the people who choose to go to which polling center or polling station to vote first in the second the polling stations that those are more than 700 there is more than 700 or 600 voting then these polling stations should be investigated in the coming future one more thing that I would like to mention about what makes us worry about the counting and security of the ballot paper and the reasons this is also something that we have to and maybe the not only the IEC also the other the callers around they have to take this very serious and also the government of Afghanistan to put lots of lots of efforts to make these ballots paper because we don't know what will be the first result of the of the election but maybe for the recounting and also for the some reviewing will be much easier for for to to maybe bring more I mean credible results the coordination between the IEC and ECC also another concern that we don't know whether the ECC and IEC have a very I mean tight coordination of their decisions because sometimes you never know what will be the decision of the IEC which it will if it will not match to the ECC decision then this will be also another problem in the future for the dispute resolution of the election related issues also there is also another point that it's a bit boring as of the political dispute as we are turning out turning to the political dispute this will be difficult situation for us in the future as there will be a political dispute which to I'm sure that there will be two two candidates that they will be having a high level of vote then if the political dispute will happen then we have to prepare ourselves how to solve this problem in the coming future another point that I would like to mention about the maturity of the candidates I mean political maturity and also the level of tolerance that they have to I mean we have to think how we have to prepare ourselves how the maturity that how these candidates will be taking the results of the election in a more mature way in a very calm way to to be acceptable to accept the results of the election these are the issues that it's really the matter of the concerns for us but I'm sure that because the people decided to to vote and I'm sure that if they are not performing even as one of these candidates the leading candidates will take over the new government if they are not performing well I'm sure that the people of Afghanistan got to that level of maturity to to make them accountable because they have come despite of all of these all of these climate problems and all of these social problems they came out and they cost their votes I think I will stop also here and I will let myself say thank you okay let me just pause to say that the full bios of the speakers for those in Washington are outside that was Najla who is the deputy country representative of Asia foundation and now I guess we go to Nargis the founder of equality for democracy okay Nargis now okay evening colleagues from Kabul everything is almost covered by my two colleagues actually nothing is left for me to say but a couple of highlights I want to make about overall election I remember it was I think 14 months or 15 months before that I myself was in DC and there was a round table discussion hosted by USIP that we have to have a discussion mainly focusing on presidential election in Afghanistan and interestingly there were so many experts and I'm sure still there are many of them that they had their own theories about Afghanistan that Afghanistan is a very conservative society and as well as like with all the challenges that we have somehow they thought and they concluded that in that Afghanistan really does not want to move forward towards part of democracy and do not want to have election and like a conservative society anyway and we believe in like in private issues and all those in the city divisions in these things so that theory was there I remember a year before when we had discussion about Afghanistan as well as upcoming election and at the same time they also had their own assumptions that first of all President Kevley will never allow that this election is going to happen according to the constitution he will definitely find some way to stay in power and even if he is going to allow that since transition is happening our national security forces will not be able to provide the security that requires overall countries so that we can have the election and even if that happens then the people will not turn out to actually vote for the next for the candidates so those assumptions are there and I remember how tough it was for all Afghans as they like as they're trying to advocate that we have to have election because it's going to be the first time peaceful transfer from start of power between one from one elected president to other one it was really tough and difficult and we ourselves really didn't know that you know how we're going to arrange everything but at the same time I believe that you know all those pressures was there and especially all these programs of interactions that we had through media social media traditional media as well as all these conferences that we had where we kept on discussing about all these issues trying to make the case for Afghanistan at the same time from time to time we were challenging ourselves the process as well as you're being challenged by others I think that level of awareness in that made all of us realize that we have to do something and this upcoming election is actually going to be like an example where actually we'll be able to prove this of the world but actually we deserve to move towards in a democracy or not so with regards to that I think like that awareness and all these discussions really made a huge difference and then we saw that in like actually Afghanistan which everybody was seeing already in like as a failed project try to actually in a concept of failure we need people manage more than 700 or 75 million managed to come together actually and in like bring a totally new narrative and perspective about Afghanistan first of all we thought that in the case I really stood to his promise he had the election on 5th April according to the constitution and as well as constantly he had the meeting and he was coming out on public and TV and encouraging people that they have to vote on the other hand and comparison to last time where actually we have 32 candidates this time we have nine candidates or actually they did not even sit in covalent just like encourage people through media to vote they all went they all went to different provinces and you saw that they were bringing thousands of people together presenting their programs to them having interactions with them and encouraging them that they have to vote and at the same time they decided that personally they are not going to attack each other and they are just going to focus on their program we also saw the very positive and effective roles that media played as well as the civil society in terms of raising awareness of the people making them realize the importance of the election and the important role that people can play and without their suspicion they're like it's not going to be a success. The role of Afghan national security forces was amazing I think this is the first time we managed to prove that actually even after a military transition Afghanistan is going to be a secure country if we manage to provide financial support to Afghan national security forces as well as technical support. The independent election commission that all of us were very much concerned about their dependency and as well as partiality actually prove themselves that you know they so far stayed impartial and try to deliver much more in like than what you're expecting from them. The complaint commission is trying their level best they already have several meetings with the candidate representatives trying to get all the complaints and now we're watching how they are going to respond to all of them. I think everybody if you look at the structure if you look at participation of people and if you look at them for contribution of and as well as the debates that we had and the role which are being played by different stakeholders actually managed to bring all these pieces together and really made in a crypto pill a successful day for all of us that actually after first of all the return out was so much that beside balance papers being actually finished in most of the centers actually also they have to extend the voting timing for another hour because they knew that in many cases people people still will be coming up will be coming in both things and at the same time in like the social media like paid a really important role as well as tradition medium. The whole day radio channels, TV channels and people around even on Facebook and Twitter tweeting to each other and talking about election reporting about irregularities and elect raising role of national security forces and that actually managed to minimize the gap between national security forces and people were actually they saw that how much support they have for them from the people and especially with all those incidents of attack that we had in like all around the country and especially Serena one were actually Taliban clearly said that you know whoever is going to come out of their house they vote that is what is going to happen to them but still 7.5 million came to like out and they voted and that was a very clear message to Taliban that you know they are the history they are not relevant anymore but at the same time there was also like a master student international community that we as people of Afghanistan actually we proved that you know we believe in them democracy and even at the course of our lives we came out and he voted now the time has come that we have to set once again and then we have to talk about long term partnership so I think like all these things and then the other thing that I'm sure you saw that beside all these taxes that we had now that was talking to you about all those irregularities and complaints that were there. Nigel Ajon talked to you about about all those concerns that she was having and that shows that still in like we have the bar quite high in terms of quality and in like we want to make sure that all doing like a persuasion of people and all these taxes that we have is not going to overshadow the religious things that we have so why is it trying to encourage people that still all of us have to stay optimistic and we also have to encourage international community that they have to see a different picture bigger picture about Afghanistan at the same time we also make sure that in like this should not become an excuse that actually we lower the bar in terms of quality of election but what is in terms of election right now is really important is that in like I believe that in the whole process if we divide it into two phase three phase I think in terms of preparation we did really great all of that and of course times to you because without your support both political and financial it was not possible the day of the election went very successful but now what we have is the completion of the process that how we are going to bring all these results together and make sure that actually the independent election commission and the complaint commission are responding to people's demand and then they are delivering and their kids maintaining their impartiality that is the very important part so in like that is when like concerned that in like we share now we're going to watch that out but of course that's going to be the most challenging part and we hope that we'll be able to come out of that as well successfully I'll stop here because I'm sure there are lots of questions from your side thank you thank you I think it's a big issue yeah Hi Scott just my job would like to make a one point and then we'll hand it to us okay Yeah sorry sorry Scott I had just one more thing to share maybe one of the because as an Afghan this was one of the issues that I would like to mention that the the full ownership of the process was on the hand of Aska this is another point that we thought that this is the ownership played another role we had a support from international community from from donor community from from all over the world but still we thought that the ownership of the process whether this was with the election commission with the total society with the with the I mean candidates themselves in agents and media everyone was the ownership in the hand of afghan that's why maybe this was one of another reason that we succeed to have a very good election thank you since the technology is working so far I think we'll go straight to our I think I could speak since the technology is working we'll go straight to now is we'll go straight to our panelists in Washington and if you can hang on in case there are questions there's certainly some points that have been raised that I would like to go back to but I want to first give a chance for our panelists here first I want to ask Peter Manicus who's a senior associate at NDI to make some comments and some reactions before that I did want to point out as all of you have followed this at NDI had a particularly difficult time during this election we've spoken about the risks that afghan voters faced when they went to the polling station on saturday but observers also faced risk and as we saw NDI lost one of their experienced observers at Luis Maria Duarte in the serena attack that was mentioned by Nargis and what I've heard from a lot of a fair number of people is that the attacks of the Taliban committed before the election in the two weeks before the election including the serena attack actually had something of a galvanizing effect on the electorate as we heard from our guests in Kabul people realized this was a opportunity perhaps the only opportunity they would have in the foreseeable future to make an emphatic point about the kind of Afghanistan they wanted to live in and what we've seemed to be seeing is that they that they use that opportunity really to quite a great extent but with that Peter over to you thank you very much Scott um NDI's program in afghanistan really for the upon election related matters really began last december when we fielded a pre-election mission there uh we also had trained a number of women political uh candidates for the provincial council races and had worked with the domestic election monitoring groups including including FIFA but also three others the the hallmark of this election is obviously participation and you know there were three times as many domestic election monitors accredited for this election than there had been in in 09 and 010 um NDI although we withdrew some of our international long-term observers after the attack at the serena we did field 101 afghan staff observers that had worked for NDI in the past in 2009 and 2010 and they managed to get to 26 of the the provinces in afghanistan um i i think as god mentioned the the attacks in the pre-election period and particularly the attack on the serena really motivated a number of the afghans particularly those on our staff who knew um louis maria duarte well and i i think they wanted to make this effort uh as a demonstration of their of their commitment to move this process forward and and as i said sort of in in honor of the the loss of life that louis and and others had experienced it was a particularly violent pre-election period which makes the uh the the relative uh quiescence of the of the election so so much more stark um our observers found uh many of the same things that you just heard from the the the panel in cobble um there were long lines uh around the country virtually in every of the provinces that that we observed and um they saw a lot of women and they saw a lot of younger people um voting and voting as well um so the the defiance of the the violence of the the pre-election period and the commitment to moving the democratic process forward i think struck everybody as being sort of the the hallmarks of the of the election um there is a warning however that this is not likely to look quite as good as it does today a few days from now we've already uh heard uh uh statements from the IEC that uh that they are disclosing instances of fraud and that's likely to to multiply in in the days they had um but still we're we're starting from a relatively low base uh i think there's in the end going to be widespread agreement that this election was an improvement over 2009 and in 2010 which is really critical i think for international support um for the further development of afghanistan both politically and and economically um events i think i mean attention is going to quickly turn to the runoff and to the the transition um the large number of polling stations that were closed for security reasons uh the the large number of uh the battle shortages that we saw are all going to be issues i think they're going to be need to need to be addressed as as the runoff approaches um there are several provinces particularly like nangar uh had a very high percentage of the of the polling stations closed for security reasons and uh the large number of people for both reasons of the ballot shortages and uh security uh closings of polling stations that are going to feel disenfranchised and um it's really going to be important i think for the credibility of the runoff that those issues are are going to be addressed the the big issue i think to focus on over the next several weeks after the the runoff occurred is is the transition itself um you face a problem in that it looks like the runoff will actually occur after the uh the expiration of the president's term there's a gap i've never quite seen a situation like this there's going to have to be some planning involved with respect to who's going to be holding the range of power and and in a presidential election in particular some planning for a runoff is really desirable in a parliamentary system you know you have shadow cabinets you have people sort of that are prepared to take the range of power shortly after the election occurs that's not usually the case in presidential races um it would be i think very fruitful for the government at least to start planning now in regard to how they're going to switch over the ministries to the the incoming government probably too much to ask for the candidates at this point that are preparing for a runoff to start putting together transition teams and naming the people that would likely be named to a cabinet but the government at least could start preparing by developing memos for each of the ministries in regard to what the pressing issues are and what matters are going to need to be addressed very quickly it would also i would really encourage the civil society organizations to start preparing a list of people that could fill sub-cabinet positions for the new government particularly women i think it would be terribly useful for some civil society organizations to start developing a list of women that would be eligible for for high positions in in in the next government i think that would be very useful to the to the incoming government but you know again i think everybody feels very good about this although you know you know we're we're starting from a relatively low base but it's it's still a very good i think sign for afghanistan's future jed is the director of programs for democracy international which has had a program in Kabul for several years now certainly is one of my regular stops when i when i go and visit and you also had a team of long-term expert observers who are watching the elections headed by glenn who i said before is watching this from dubai perhaps i'm sure he has wonderful things to say and when he gets back he'll share all those with you well thank you so much scott thanks to us ip for putting this together and thank you all in Kabul for for joining us and sharing your initial impressions on the process thus far we had a democracy international had a very small team of international observers that deployed some of them that deployed around the country but on election day all of our observers observed in Kabul our initial impressions are very much consistent with the reports that you've heard so in the spirit of not being repetitive i i won't i won't reiterate all those i think you know one of the the most important things that that we've heard thus far is the positive reports from the domestic observation groups that had the luxury of sending so many people around the country like fifa and like tifa and some of the other domestic observation groups that are active in afghanistan the reports from the partners in Kabul are much more positive than they have been in the past at this stage of the process but i want to talk a little bit about what comes next and i think many of us in many of you in the room i'm sure are familiar with this process but and and peter alluded to the fact that there there could in fact be a runoff election but in the past it hasn't been exactly so simple to get through that process and to get to that point as many of you who have who have observed these processes know so now that election day has happened and afghans have come out and voted enthusiastically there are really two you know many of you are probably wondering why why does it take so long to get those results and there are two processes in place right now one a results tabulation process that's managed by the independent election commission and two a complaints adjudication process that's managed by the independent election complaints commission these processes in the past have been absolutely critical and like i said election day is a is a is an extremely important step in the pre-election period obviously it was extremely important to to get to election day and for that process to take place successfully on election day but the most critical part of the processes in the past has been the post immediate post election period and the results tabulation process in the complaints adjudication process so the IEC in Kabul as we speak are are busy receiving results forms from around the country those results forms will be tallied through a tally procedure that's been defined and distributed and explained publicly in Kabul we should have you know results start to be announced here in in in the coming days concurrently with that is the complaints adjudication process which is absolutely critical to this process the ECC the the IECC now will be responsible for categorizing the complaints that they have that have been lodged and they will categorize as category a complaints those that could potentially affect the outcome of of the race and those will be the most critical complaints for the for the independent electoral complaints commission to review as those processes unfold I mean the the results tabulation process and the complaints adjudication processes are absolutely critical regardless of how close the race is but there are two scenarios by which those processes could be at least two scenarios by which those processes could be even more important one of those scenarios is should one candidate actually be close to the 50 threshold to avoid the runoff election that many people have alluded to that many people have alluded to many of the panelists have alluded to should that be the case obviously any of the complaints that were lodged with the IECC that could potentially affect the outcome become more important should the percentage be be low to to meet that threshold potentially meet that threshold and then any quarantined polling stations that the independent collection commission will will quarantine stations based on some predefined set of criteria that they will then have to or choose to investigate those polling stations further should that should someone one candidate actually be close to the 50 50 threshold obviously that process will help determine whether or not there will in fact be a runoff election the other scenario I think is between the second and third candidates and should the margin between the second and third candidates in the preliminary results be close then both the IECC's results tabulation process and the ECC's complaints adjudication process will be critically important to determine who in addition to the first candidate will actually participate in that runoff election so those are two of the those are the two reasons primarily why you know it takes so long to get election results in Afghanistan but and those are the two processes to watch here over the coming weeks so and it won't be until the conclusion of those processes that we actually know one who who will participate in a runoff election and then two who eventually will become afghanistan's next president so we may we may not have a winner you know for for quite some time and you know if one of the two scenarios that I mentioned plays out I think we can expect that it'll take longer than than it may otherwise but I think that we do have one loser already and I think that the enthusiasm that we saw on election day and I think the fact that so many afghans came out and voted in such large numbers despite great personal risk shows that the Taliban strategy to disrupt the election failed and that the afghan people are certainly winners in this process the Taliban are certainly losers in this process and the fact that they had they they felt they were compelled to target the process in the pre-election period to the extent that they did I think shows just how far democracy has come in afghanistan and the fact that so many people came out to participate in this election so many afghans came out to participate in the election and risked their lives to cast their to cast a ballot and to exercise their democratic right shows that today it's much more true that democracy is the path to power in afghanistan and not war and bloodshed so thanks our final speaker hamid arsalan from the national down of democracy i'm going to put you a little bit on the spot a little bit and and point us a bit in the direction of the future but following up on this point that jet just made about the fact that the Taliban were the losers and their campaign to disrupt didn't seem to succeed if there is a second round what can we expect there was almost an element of humiliation in the statements people were giving about why they were voting and they're voting against the Taliban will there be a redoubled effort if there is a second round and and more generally in the future where where are we going in afghanistan well before addressing those questions i want to notice and note something that in this panel i don't know if you guys noticed the number of afghans are more than our international friends 12 years ago this would have not been probably the case so i think that's encouraging i would like to begin by thanking also usip and scott and by mentioning that it's always beautiful to speak in at last in such a distinguished panel because all the hard questions are covered i think i will address that question in three specific parts and then i will talk about the challenges of hopefully if there is if there is or there is in a runoff and for the next administration that may come into power probably in august or september so i think the three points that really mobilized afghans to take part in this elections way more than let's say the previous round was won in the people in 2009 because they knew that karzai is running and they're dealing with an incumbent president they would be like well why should we participate you know he's going to be the next president of afghanistan anyways so that really encouraged afghans to take an active role and like to be really active towards the selections and participate in this huge number and the second point is that we noticed you know a much much more informed citizenry you know that the afghans were way more informed this time around in elections about their political rights and obligations that i think i would like to give credits to the international organizations like usip and ed and di and many other organizations who worked hard during the past years in terms of educating the afghans about their political rights and obligations you know citizen awareness we have seen you know the level of enthusiasm and the debates especially among the younger generation of afghans which according to some data you know nearly over 60 percent of the afghan population is under the age of 25 they were very engaged in the debates of the presidential candidates questioning them you know if you're going to be the next president of afghanistan what is going to be your foreign policy so that shows to us you know that they are not concerned much about the ethnic politics rather than you know issue-based politics in afghanistan the third and the last point as i think mentioned by our friends in Kabul and as well as by you the recent attack in serena especially the death of my friend and our journal and our grantee sardar Ahmad and his entire family you know with the exception of abouzar who is i think a hero in afghanistan and survived that really triggered and backfired for the afghans to say no to tyranny and terrorism represented by the Taliban and they say that you know we are embracing democracy and constitutional order and we want to participate fully in this elections so those were the three parts basically to answer to your question as far as for some of the challenges that hopefully if we have a next administration in the next few months in afghanistan in my view we will have the next administration will have like four key distinct challenges on the political front it's extremely important on to include some representatives from the losing candidate and party because of unity in afghanistan so who wins the next election i think that will be their toughest challenge on how to approach in and how to sort of embrace and include them which both of the leading candidate both abdullah and hanyi they say that if they were to win the next elections they are ready to include people from the other party as well the second point is on our bureaucracy i think for many of the international organizations and many of our international friends it's obvious that we have a lot of corruptions and like a huge bureaucracy that in most parts it's disfunctioning you know and so that would be really a big challenge that how then because one other thing that really encouraged afghans to take part in this elections was you know because of the corruption they were like you know we want a next president to address this challenge to deal with cronyism nepotism because most those who are in power in the country they are there based on patrimonial and new patrimonial relations you know so that will be another challenge because a lot of these candidates they address that we are going to fight against corruption and we want to bring reform that would be another challenge to materialize on some of those promises for the next president of afghanistan a third would be an economy as many of you know more than 500 000 youth or individuals are adding every year according to the recent data by the world bank to the afghanistan's workforce so job opportunities and providing opportunities of economy would be a really really tough challenge for the next president as well and the last point is on foreign policy as all of you know president carzai refused to sign the bilateral security agreement with the united states but the good sign is that most of the leading candidates both khani and abdullah as well as rasul they indicated that if they were to become the next president of afghanistan they are going to sign the bilateral security agreement so afghanistan especially the its relationship during the last few years severely was damaged with the international community in particular the united states so the next administration has a tough task ahead to reset these relationships with the international community especially with the united states and also to deal with some tough neighbors you know pakistan and iran to deal with the taliban issue and so forth so i'll stop here and we'll open up probably for questions and answers thanks thanks thanks to all of the panelists for for being uh thorough and and not repetitive there was one point that that i was waiting to hear if it was going to be addressed or not and i didn't hear it addressed so i'll abuse my privilege to make it and it might seem like a small point but uh i actually don't think it is which is that for the first time in the fabled 5 000 years of afghan history an election has been held according to the constitutional timeline every presidential election and parliamentary election that we've held in the past the the two presidential the two parliamentary the two provincial council elections have all been held in the fall whereas the constitution calls for them to be held uh in the spring so you could technically argue that every election has been illegal in some sense uh and there was a big concern about whether or not whether would be a massive factor in this election but it was organized on time it was held on time it proves that it can be done and and really the weather despite the bad weather on the day of the election and then the rain the weather was the dog that didn't bark and i think that's tremendously important for the future planning of elections if i may add one last point um i grew up in afghanistan so i remember the soviet time russians the taliban and as a kid our games was you know to play probably with fake tanks and uh fake guns or whatever some of you may have seen this picture who that is viral now on facebook that the next generation of afghans the kids they are playing the democracy and voting game you know to go and like they paint their finger and they go and they try to you know participate in and and and so that really gives me hope that afghanistan is heading to a bright bright future yeah when i first saw that picture i forgot to read the caption i thought it was underage voters lining up shaman can you hear us shaman east we get it all right listen well let's open up the uh the questions to all of you in a democratic spirit we'll try to get um our our uh smartphone people in cobble uh back on the line in case you have questions for them but um we should wave our hands we should yeah try to try uh where are our microphones hold on we'll start with you david there's a microphone coming in thank you uh david said me uh first uh beyond the central congratulations to the afghan people in the afghans security forces scott i'd like to thank and congratulate you at usip both for putting this forum on and for having your advisors uh both shaman mood and his people on the ground in afghanistan and andrew on your team out there i thought that was tremendously important that you did so and they obviously required uh a deal of courage to do so when so many other advisors left so congratulations to usip for your efforts uh in uh listing the winners and losers as we love to do in the united states um i would add uh and i'd ask for the panelists comments pakistan is a loser uh because uh while the afghan security forces perform very well they did so in the face of a continuing onslaught of infiltration from pakistan all the evidence is that the number of people the amount of weapons the amount of explosives that cross the border in the two months before the election was much higher than uh than it had been before and that the safety on election day was due to the afghan security forces uh in the last and this is a second question and final question for the panel in the last couple of days there have been a couple of commentators in pakistan and a couple in the u.s who have said that the taliban did this on purpose in order to give space for the elections as far as i can tell that's not consistent with the facts on the ground but i'd be very interested in commentary particularly from your people in uh in in cabel as to just how good were the afghan security forces was this a victory for the afghan security forces or was it restraint by the taliban thank you all right shall we can you hear us at the moment please try again later we're sorry you're caught well this is a danger of these kinds of events but we'll try to get them back and that was really on the point please try later in the meantime any any anybody want to volunteer some responses to those questions from the side i think you know to a large part i would like to give credit to the afghan national security forces especially since the surge uh like and since the transition periods the areas that even uh were taken when the national troops were on the ground as well it was the enicef that they approached and they took those areas back and this time around there was a much much better coordination between the independent election commission and the security forces especially the way they like sort of divide the layer the the the security for apparatus in the three-layer forces involving in the s to detect some of these attacks from happening and also engaging the police and and the army so um i think they did a phenomenal job and in terms of providing the security during the day of the elections and to a large credit we should also give them credit that going through the campaigning period you know we could see that they're really in control thousands of people in the varieties in kandahar for example they came out to support their candidates in other provinces so it really boosts the confidence of the people to uh trust their security forces that you know they can't provide our security and then that lets probably more engagement just the broader point the the the narrative of pakistani officials is somewhat frighteningly um uh distorted it would seem to me i mean i i think what you're referring to is probably an example of of of their wanting people to believe that the afghans really couldn't protect themselves and this was a gift from the taliban um i've also heard them say that you know the the election will be rigged by mr carzai and that uh ashraf khani would get something in the single digits i mean what what's concerning about it i think is that an actor of that importance um could could have such a view that sort of uh departed from reality that's very disturbing i think because at least you want whatever their their policy is you want them to be clear thinking about what the actual facts are let me just add quickly on on the question of pakistan from what i've heard from those who know much more about this than i do is that at a certain point in the last couple of years the pakistan has basically realized that uh the taliban will not be an instrument which can dominate afghanistan or pacified you know on their behalf or or or or or in their interests uh and in a bit like everybody else they were sort of forced to accept the fact that the elections were going to be um the event that mattered whether they liked it or not and they also began to hedge in terms of the elections uh the visits to the northern lions and and and other political actors they weren't engaged with up to then so it might have just been uh you know a sort of pragmatism that they've you know that they basically realize that it was in their interest for these elections to go well over there to be some sort of smooth transition of power how much influence they have over preventing the taliban from doing something or not that is always you know the eternal question that is being debated over and over again in many uh capitals uh very quick last point on on on pakistan i think the key point is that pakistan should change the the the way they are looking towards afghanistan you know afghanistan is never going to go back to where it was in 2001 or 2002 i think they should treat afghanistan definitely as a strategic partner and as a good neighbor it's going to be for their benefit as well look at the amount of trades that have increased at least during the past decade between the two countries uh yep how did you learn yeah just real quick i mean uh yeah further and it always amazes me how quickly a question of about pakistan comes up in a panel discussion on afghanistan and we did it on the first question this time but the the the larger question about whether you know this was somehow the taliban strategy i think is is entirely inaccurate and uh i think their strategy in the lead up to the election was to be extremely violent and we saw observers we saw journalists we saw election officials lose their lives in the lead up to it uh and the strategy was uh the hope was i think on the behalf of the taliban that that would somehow scare the afghans and the afghan voters to not participate in this process and that didn't play out so no please hello my name is faribu parsha i have a business scholar at george mason university center for conflict analysis and resolution first of all i would like to congratulate to afghanistan for election and also congratulations for high number of v-men who have been elected if you compare iran with afghanistan in iran only three percent i would like to hear um and comments from afghanistan what are the expectation of v-man for the new government and is there expectation to and we will see more women in the government to have a more important sensitive positions and what does it mean for women's right for the new government thank you are you back online and cobble yes we do oh did you hear the question no i was not clear okay the question are what are what are the what are the expectations for women in afghanistan as a result of this election my expectation from the next government uh because to improve governance to you know care about women children youth in so many you know issues like this thing there uh but you know at the same time the afghanistan are realistic what is possible what is not possible uh but if the next government has a political will to you know uh to tackle all these issues i think people will have a patient to wait you know but you can answer the question this is already an interesting question thank you so thank you so much um i think one of the issues that we have faced in the past the most of the elected authorities uh in afghanistan uh in uh current administration they get lots of promises while they were combining during their uh i mean during the election but unfortunately most of the promises was not kept but this time um there was lots of activities uh uh going on before the election one of them was that uh most of the women in social society came together from all of the country and and they put their statements and their expectations from the from these uh uh candidates that's why they put their uh their expectation and the the uh the statement and they asked these candidates to sign uh at the bottom of all of those expectations and i'm sure that there there's signatures of there and i'm sure if they are not um if they are not uh responding to those uh uh or not keeping their promises then they will be uh uh uh they have to be accountable and these people when the woman on one side will make them accountable for their promises and i'm sure that narga john have uh lots of experience uh bringing women from the promises and um and talking to them and they have lots of uh things that they share and i'm sure that she will contribute to this as well naturally women from the center and problems with several platforms came together um and actually one of the initiatives which uh which was supported by inside people uh bro uh actually we managed to have two uh woman dialogue in the south and north of afghanistan where women from 22 provinces came together and they had two days of full discussion on election challengers opportunities and as well as the expectation from the future president then at the same time actually what we did is we reviewed all of them and then we invited 200 women to cobble and we invited all candidates where actually they directly interacted with them and they they asked questions they uh they as well as presented their expectation to the candidates and they asked them that like what is going to be their program for women and they presented their programs and copies of all their manifestos over there which are not quite articulated uh because it was personal experience for them to actually have been like a manifesto for women empowerment but at the same time like at least couple of things which are important about women's political participation women's verification and as well as in like a reaction of violence against women but something that all of them promised that they're going to work towards that at the same time in like with regard to women's participation they i think like the expectation this time is quite high because everybody was talking you know like about uh uh women's political participation at the same time not being supported by the current administration that's why this time 36 percent of you like voters are women that means that this government is going to be absolutely accountable to women and they cannot deny our demands anymore so right now like again a group of us are discussing that we'll be coming together preparing ourselves that what exactly and specifically you are going to request and demand from the next administration that as soon as the whoever is going to end the election and they take the office we are going to have another round of discussions with them which is going to be presented to them and then they have to respond to that so that preparation is in the process thanks yeah uh my name is abuel anasiri uh first a quick comment on um well uh i think mr david sydney mentioned about the taliban letting the elections to be held in a secure environment i would say that the taliban and the pakistanis did whatever they could to threaten the people of afghanistan from going to cast their votes and one of the the examples was during the election day actually the pakistanis you know fired several missiles in its shillings over kunar and as a result a teenage or 20 or 21 year old boy who was on the way to the voting center to cast his vote was killed so and before that the taliban actually uh with their attack uh on syrina hotel uh did already whatever they could to threaten the people in order to prevent them from attending in the elections so i think the credit goes to the people of afghanistan the security forces who were capable to maintain security for the people and it was the people who say no to the violence and to the taliban now my question goes to uh the panelists uh and cobble that if the election goes to run off how do you see uh the iec to um have preparations to redo the elections and also one of the panelists here in washington said that uh there will be a gap the president is already out of the office so with uh no one leading the administration how prepared the iec and the government is to redo the elections thank you someone did you hear that uh okay yeah i had the question just in terms of uh you know i concur with uh you know the the people have show courage you know to come out and i mentioned in my presentation uh around 400 incidents that happened about 31 people were killed and more than 150 people were injured on the election day the afghan police national army but people defied you know all the threats and they just came out so the credit goes to the afghan we have to understand the things they tried before the election during the election or might do something after the election but uh people you know shall you know uh demonstrated courage and others to come out uh regarding the preparation of iec uh i believe the iec is ready to you know conduct election in two weeks after the final result uh so that will be technically is not a problem and also iec have to you know uh conclude uh you know what's called macadacation about all the complaints especially about the presidential complaint uh soon uh according to the time table they just distributed you know it is possible to have a taken down election because already the materials of election are in the districts you know so they're going to transport the materials back like you know for booting you know paper or some other station you know some other thing they might resupply them uh but the only thing is a ballot paper and it would be different to people uh it could happen maybe in a weekday or something only they are in discussion they are prepared for that as far as i thought for the iec executive in germany yesterday so they are prepared uh prepare for that and and the second question what is the the the what happens if there's no announcement when the constitutional term of the president expires because the constitution is not quite clear on that this term is ending but there are no mechanisms existing how to do after that you know but maybe mr noddy will ask okay can you also turn the camera so uh we see mr noddy thank you there is uh the constitution is on one hand very clear uh that james precise date of course stuff uh treatment of the solar calendar the new president will have to take uh uh the office but also there's one additional language within within within that provision would say after the announcement of the result of the election and that some members of the of the constitutional oversight commission uh interpret this as that there is a slight possibility where election goes to the second round and the president elect is not yet known and the current president can continue it creates a legal limbo it's not clear but the practice in the past has been that there being several delays uh in the timeline that timeline unfortunately several times been been uh uh crossed and violated everybody is expecting that the procedure for education of complaint for this round to be speeded up and we uh as soon as possible to have the final result and in case there's a runoff the ic uh time and again uh confirmed that assured that uh whether 10 days to two weeks they will be able to uh uh run again the election and the 10 days they said they need is for the ballot papers to be printed to be uh uh dispatched to cobbles and then to be distributed to the stations for the operations so there is a legal uh uh uh ambiguity there and there will be a legal crisis but if the political uh agreement among the politicians allow the time to pass uh and that's one month or a few weeks may and maybe something uh to be to be accepted and this will become later on as uh as a practice but then everybody realizes that the constitution has a lot of issues and problems that need to be addressed as soon as the new president takes the office uh almost all of the front line has been say constitutional reform will be one of their uh uh uh uh uh uh legislative agenda uh as they take the office and let me add let me add on this point just because uh my understanding is first of all as I said since no election has been held up to now on a constitutional time frame we've faced this problem in every election and we faced it in 2009 and uh for better or for worse I think there is a supreme court precedent basically saying that the president who is in power stays in power until the inauguration of the of the next president so this might not be as uh contentious as an issue um as as it could be but I think uh Nadir's absolutely right it probably depends as well on the attitude of the of the candidates if they want to raise this challenge uh or not uh my one of it from the defense department first of all I want to thank you all for these insightful presentations uh secondly it's worth noting that the April 5th election was not only success for the afghan people and the afghan government but it was a success for the international community and democracy in afghanistan is in the best interest of everyone in the region and around the world uh in regard to um the dynamic in afghanistan I'll go to uh shaman mutmi akhilev he could answer me since um you are on the ground in Kabul uh do you uh what do you think about the people do they see any uh political change in regard to relationship between Kabul and Washington DC do they think that the next president will probably change the relationship that cars I have with DC for the betterness of the people of afghanistan and secondly and regard to the election and bsa uh well for president carza he didn't sign the bsa because he thought that it will be a threat for his legacy he didn't want that on his background but the other candidates they told us that they will sign the bsa once they become the president but what assurances do we have that they will certainly sign the bsa because based on the robert gates book yeah he said there was interference in 2009 and all these candidates were worried if they said oh we're not going to sign it then the united states not going to support them so they said yes yeah we will sign him but once they become um that position they might just say I'm not going to sign it because if I sign him it will be something like a duerne line agreement between pakistan and afghanistan so uh if some of the panel could answer those thank you so much okay thank you very much I believe uh because all the leading candidates repeatedly they said even yesterday uh Dr. Abdullah and also ashavani both and was true not you know uh I believe ashavani just said is uh and within a week he will sign the bsa you know uh and the relation will improve the the reason is that because so far you know afghanistan whoever is the next president they need the support of international community for a long time you know uh and they depend on the foreign assistance and support so they will sign these things and without that it's not possible to you know meet so many challenges in the country uh of running the government and also the uh the people you know expectations they have from the next government so that will happen but the comparison of this agreement with the duerne line is the two different things you know this is a not uh you know land issue or is it not a border issue or something it is a strategic relationship uh with the international community especially the US and it is all more you know the US have a this kind of uh argument with so many other countries and so I believe it is uh if you look to the lawyer guy you know the consecutive lawyer guy last year uh so everybody you know uh gets so said is to sign this and also uh the strategic partnership was approved by the parliament of afghanistan I think there is no obstacles to sign the things and also there is a need for the adoption I mean do you want to add something just uh just a quick point that I want to add on on on the on the bsa uh the the president of afghanistan they they didn't provide an alternative that if I'm not going to sign in the bsa with the us I would have because as you know only if we put the development like cost aside our afghan national security forces we anticipate about five billion a year and you will very well known that afghan's economy is not as strong enough to be able to do that and afghanistan doesn't have an alternative and I don't think either of these two uh leading candidates would want to be uh the president of a bankrupt country and this is the point that's both of us who we uh indicated in our recent peace and foreign policy so I don't think they want to be the president of a bankrupt country Jed you also you know I think I think the you know there are there are a number of scenarios by which you know the bsa will be signed you know and we've heard recently that you know potentially it could be signed before the next president is is sworn in um and we've heard speculation um although I you know whether this would be you know binding but we've heard speculation that uh that Karzai would simply have one of his ministers sign it um prior to the president being sworn in I am skeptical that I do think the next president will sign it if it will sign it will agree to a bilateral security agreement with the United States uh if it's not done so before that president is sworn in but I don't think that's going to happen without conditions uh I don't think that the next president of afghanistan is going to want to come in immediately agree to an agreement that president Karzai took such a strong stand on that's an interesting point I think there's a question down here can I sometimes on this part yeah yeah go ahead you know the thing is that uh you know the leading one of the leading candidate you know ashraf when he actually negotiated he said so I think uh it would be not that much uh you know to talk about you open the negotiation again it would prolong some things like that uh I believe uh the condition and you know relationship and everything you know is uh defined I think and it would be a lot of that much problem hopefully hopefully we'll see soon who's right yeah go ahead thank you um actually I just want to add up on that I think when we have the concert ticket please uh jerga on the BSM all the candidates were invited and at least the three candidates who are who are the top candidates dr zilma irasool dr ashraf honey and dr abdelham all of them have publicly like endorsed that and dr zany was uh member of the negotiation group with dr zilma irasool and dr abdelham as opposition several times came in like uh on public tv and asked the president to sign bc so at least these three top candidates none of them are going to oppose that or in like uh or in like will not or would not like say anything in terms of not signing that but the other thing is also the public pressure now people have realized in like all of us have realized the the power of people so then 4 000 people that they came together and they have actually endorsed the bc as soon as we have the election in a process completed that demand is going to be the first thing on the table to actually sign it and one thing that we also have to remember that unlike kaza these people are not only like the only man in like running the show all of them are having in their camp group that they have helped them with their campaign and they are accountable to them and the groups that every one of them are having like are the ones who are bc some of the more even ministers of the current administration some of them are outside the administration but they are all the ones that you know they are for bc and you like they will definitely demand that the president the future president f not signed by the current one should sign that but i'm sure also you have you heard the press conference that we had two days before where actually the current minister of foreign affairs said that he was very optimistic that actually president may sign it so that is something that at least he probably he said that in like the work is going on and we're discussing and there is very high possibility of actually signing bc before transfer of power to the next administration okay so now we have three options right personally don't think there is anything that actually united states or else we have to be worried about okay thank you thank you my name is festival icon i'm economy fellow the new america foundation my one question is that one of the one of the campaigns was talking about direct election of governors in the provinces and districts and were there any other any other candidates that had any similar sort of ideas during that campaign and the second one is that the parallel economy in afghanistan which is very strong has access to capital access to markets you know financial transactions it's creating job creation and things what are some of the things that you saw that the campaign spoke about about developing a strong domestic economy and i just wanted to make a last just a quick comment because i've heard a couple of these pakistan comments just to make the audience aware that there were 20 people killed in islamabad today because of an attack that took place there've been over 50 60 000 civilians who've died i myself belong to a district where parliamentarians are threatened during their campaigns by anti-democratic forces which is similar to the situation of anistan and i think alienating 180 million people who face the same issues instead of embracing some of the commonalities as something that can affect the stability thank you shaman did you get did you get the first two questions yeah i just got you know it might be take a long time whatever i know who wish can even say what you know but all of them they talk about economic you know issues in the country how to you know you know build their own economy in the country and at the same time how to you know reach the regional you know dimension of the economy and also beyond the region for example to the distance neighbors like you know how to have a better you know uh relationship and also opportunity with the central ish and country with the turkey in the syria you know china is here in india and also beyond that with the west you know they talk about different modalities and different when they have it i think that guest can answer on this also because she worked in the minister of economy before uh minister of finance but let me shall let me just ask a follow-up did the candidates campaign with a significant enough specificity about their programs to be able to differentiate one from the other or is it just projections of personalities and and finally also can you change the camera to uh uh as much as we like to see you i think in terms of uh in terms of their uh manifesto when we reviewed that actually to have any kind of in that articulated program that you will be able to actually review and compare their manifesto in each of the program whether we are talking about the economic and if you are talking about social development or about good governance there was not any kind of in that kind of program that they would come presented to people and people would review that and make that comparison so i think that preparation was not there to be very honest to you but generally all of them were talking about fighting corruption including governance and delegating some level of authority to provinces uh there were increasingly totally actually arranged the last debate that was between the candidates the three top candidates were invited that was Dr. Abdelaw, Dr. Zilmerisou and Dr. Ashavani and it was a two hours of debate specifically on economical issues that they have to come and present their programs to people interestingly needed Dr. Abdelaw not Dr. Zilmerisou portrayed it in the program so two hours was there only for Ashavani and of course as a minister of finance he had a very well designed program in terms of economical development that he presented to people and i believe he managed to bring you know like hundreds and millions of votes that night because he had two hours nonstop to present his program to people so he very clearly talked about you know how he's going to combat corruption how he's going to prove governance and what are the some of the programs in the mining sector the communication sector construction sector that he's going to take to be able to actually like bring a more uh economy and you know economical opportunity for Afghanistan and he also talked about economical cooperation within the region and as well as with uh with the international community but the rest of the candidates i uh they didn't have that kind of well articulated program that was beginning to sound like a campaign speech in argues so one more thing i think one of the reason among the other i'm not part of any campaign just something that even this was discussed among the social society members and and maybe most of the active social society youth groups as well that most of these candidates they didn't had specific i mean uh technical understanding of the economic issues in Afghanistan and at the regional level that's why even on that night when there was a debate going on this was kind of a funny way that there was no debate there was only one person was talking in talking because they were calling it debate but this was not debate that's why i think one of the reason that i would i would call is the lack of the the technical knowledge about the economic issues as well as about the understanding of the the regional economic as well as the national economic issues okay thanks i think we're going to maybe take two more questions and then have a have a round up here there's a question in the back and then in the front oh my name is Javed Ahmad i'm with the general marshal of the united states i have two quick questions one is in the event that the election does get into a runoff which seems likely do you foresee any last-minute coalition buildings or backdoor deals or any sort of possible concessions by any of the candidates and secondly now that president Karzai has proved many of his critics wrong although the election results have yet to be seen do you or how do you foresee his role in post-april political dispensation in Kabul especially given or if his alleged loyalist result doesn't win thanks uh did you get that in Kabul i think the question was about in like runoff second runoff and the second one was about full of president Karzai after the election right right right or after the new administration right i'm taking with me yeah i will just you know the politics is always about coalition building reaching to each other and all these things you know so i believe that there's nothing wrong with that uh you know i'm to who joining with who who supports each other uh but you know as far as if you know the surveys if you just look at the surveys you know the latest survey uh the two are the leading candidates and they have a broader appeal to the people and i think people will vote again uh you know on the way they want it but of course president Karzai you know both of the candidates you know especially the leading candidates they just see they will have a some role to play in the future but we don't know exactly what would be that role and this is also very important you know a certain president you know leave the office and they have a better you know life of play a role in the future so this would be the good president you know in the future for other presidents uh so they should not you know because if you just go to the history of an Afghanistan since the year of drama you know uh so all the president were killed or expelled or you know removed from the office you know uh so this will be the first time in history if this has happened and the candidate will some credit will go to the president Karzai also you know nobody can deny that also and he will have a some role in the future okay any reactions here are kai introduce yourself the kai item from norway we worked in afghanistan for a few years scott would you permit a comment before the question how can i say no first on the bsa i would not be surprised if karzai in fact signs the bsa i think it's not an unlikely scenario let's wait and see uh second when it comes to a relationship to the united states i think it's very importantly to remember there are two sides to listen it's not only the afghan government difficult karzai in inverted commas uh it both sides have to push the reset button if this is going to work and i think god bob gates outlines the problems here very well in his recent book on this particular point then of course there are great expectations of these elections which i do really really uh has been a success in so many ways but not everything has changed in afghanistan because of these elections uh what has happened is that a new basis has probably been created for addressing some of the most pressing challenges corruption roller women etc and i think now it's up to civil society in particular in afghanistan to use that new basis it's also up to the international community to see that there is no new basis established and please let's not let afghanistan down but pursue our efforts our support as strongly as we can that was my little comment okay and then my question and that has to do with ashaf ghani's choice of dostum as his vice presidential candidate how has that been seen in particular among the young urban populations and voters and secondly how do you see it affect if ashaf ghani should be elected how do you see that we affect his credibility and his ability to conduct the process of reform that he has been advocating thank you okay reactions first from gobble yeah i think it is a hi-kai it is a difficult question you know because uh i will not no i will not uh you know to answer on his behalf what he just think but uh people of afghanistan you know young world woman you know educated educated people all of these people you know they came out and they voted and i was in very remote provinces like in khunar paktia and herat and you know some other parts of the country and i saw the enthusiasm of the you know people you know in my presentation i mentioned the as far as the you know the result we see you know especially in my own promise i see it they rejected the status quo and also they rejected the old gods you know the leaders you know or the power brokers or whatever you call it one lord or whatever those who you know dominated upon some politics in the last 30 years you know so people wanted some change and that change mostly happened with the leading two candidates you know either of the lord or kashaf ghani and people know who their vice president is because each one has a different you know uh people around themselves but you know in afghanistan is this is another one condition we will go towards stability improve governance and have a confidence of the people on the political institution and government institution and security institutions so that confidence is a big issue which will hopefully be based on this momentum you know in the mix uh you know a few days or a few weeks or months or years coming you know uh so now this show you know because in afghanistan there was another issue uh before the election uh you know there was a many assumptions okay whoever the u.s supporting or uh you know uh maybe you know because our government will interfere or something but you know i wrote a peace and fun policy on april first and i when i saw it into the other one of the people during the campaign so i just said as you know it is not possible to make the selection to the extent it is possible like 2009 the government machinery is divided and everybody you know the sitting president is not running so there were so many differences between 2009 and 2014 when i see the maturity of the people you know you cannot believe it there are more mature people in the rural areas than most of our elites you know uh sitting in Kabul or in other places okay i think david you had a two-finger comment and yeah i would like to i would like to at the point okay uh yeah actually uh as mirah hillside mentioned it's a bit difficult question but um still i have a little bit different view uh uh compare with uh mirah hillside because uh in many cases uh you can see that this is the reality of our country because we have all of these um let's say we are calling them wallors or maybe the influential people by any means in the in the society we have their role uh and and this is the reality we have to accept it first of all but the second is uh dulcim was pushed by ghani that he should say he should apologies from the apology from what he has done in the past uh to the people of Afghanistan which is the first place this was a little bit negative youth and and and people were have had a little bit negative uh perceptions about why uh mr ghani choose dulcim as the vice president but later on when he apologized from the people then this was a kind of a good sign for the people which this is also something that we have to realize that this happened in the first time ever in the history of the conflict in Afghanistan that come on without any pressure or any uh i mean um any any uh uh any uh accountability uh or maybe any any uh any mechanisms that make them accountable he's coming in and uh saying apologies to the people what he has done but the the third thing is that of course uh mr ghani uh might lose all already some of the support from the other ethnicities mainly because uh mr dulcim is representing one of the third majority or fourth majority of the population in Afghanistan but still this is something that we have to realize that this is the reality of this country but uh we'll see what will happen after the the results okay i just want to add on that yeah i think you think that in this election once again we observe uh first of all about the rule of many people uh and do that in that whatever you call them warlords leaders in the mojongi whoever that some of them became quite irrelevant and this election proved that uh for example someone that always in like you're putting pressure on the administration and he was quite influential claiming that like he has followers but by in like running this time for the election and having the percentage of both he proved himself that like he's not relevant anymore in the society there were many other lists of them that actually like they were claimed to be quite relevant and in like having their own followers but this election proved that actually they are not relevant anymore only in case of those some i must say that in other ethnicities if we look at Pashtun's projects and Hazaras at least in the last 10 to 12 years they're they have been many other leaders that they have grown up they have come out they are and and and they have begun to lead their people and represent them so people have people have been like better choices but when we compare that to the case of us backs we see there's still we have we have not been able to at least have those prominent new leaders that they would they would come on board and you like people those backs would see that you like these people are are are better choices for us and they can represent us so that then they could have joined some of these techies only Sharonis families was there but they are not that influential that i think that also those some there's actually i think he was quite smart in terms of you like playing politics that as soon as the process of election in like even before start-up he brought together all those backs including like educated and non-educated all those that they're relevant including minister of public health some of the deputy minister all of them and told them that we have to stay united and we have to claim our rights in like from these right from the uh from these candidates so that in itself and brought them together actually made him quite influential of course many many people were very disappointed when they saw that combination but at the same time when the whole the the whole campaign started everybody got so campaigned that actually who really one of us forgot that actually who is in whose ticket because it was not only Rani actually the other candidates also we had dr. Abdullah that he also has in his group. But at the same time we have somebody who has actually nobody strong and get that kind of personality in his group so it's a kind of like it was not a kind of like we didn't have i think people didn't have kind of like better choices that's why many people went on and they they supported and many influential people like dr. Hadid's political party uh no monsoon nor the least political party and many of them later on actually by all those campaign they decided that they will join his group so i think those vast case was quite different in comparison to pastures project and as well as the plan in terms of leadership so those were the only leaders that they have okay we're since we're we're running out of time i wanted to give david a quick comment and then i think we'll go through the back through the panel here in in washington and then wrap it up and allow you and cobble to finally have dinner but david you had a two finger comment my quick comment is that one person who i think based on everything today deserves great credit and high praise and is not getting it is president hamid karzai one year ago two years ago inside the government outside the government in panels such as this people were confidently predicting that president karzai would manipulate the elections that they would be a failure that he would choose his candidate etc etc i think all of us heard those criticisms to date president karzai has not lived down to those expectations rather he has exceeded them in an exceptional way my own hope and i expect the hope of many is that president karzai's crowning achievement will be the way in which he transfers power to a successor and along the way however i think it is important to give him credit for what he has done up until now and trust that he will continue on the same path thank you that also sounds like a campaign speech but uh it's i think important to remember that where afghanistan was uh 12 years ago then it was like a safe haven to terrorism and an isolated country but during the past 12 years you know we have come a long a long way you know in any aspect that you measure afghanistan politically economically socially you see improvement in development often our national security advisor refers to afghanistan as a lamb among the wolves so we are really hopeful and optimistic we are counting on international security international community not to abandon afghanistan at such a critical stage which i don't hopefully anticipate such a scenario afghans are often saying that you know we want to be the next south korea in our region we do not want to be uh iraq or another sumalia so we really hope that that path continues and that we build on on the recent success in afghanistan thank you just want to you know it's it's really important i think that we recognize uh you know how much work is left to be done i think right now what's important in in afghanistan is that both the iec and the icc be given the space that they need to conduct their job independently and impartially um and that the candidate campaigns have patience with the process as well um and just to to uh to expand off of of what you said hami you know we have uh you know not often talked about democracy as an area where afghanistan has made progress and uh this election i hope is is another important step forward uh to uh democracy and the democratic process in afghanistan becoming a strength uh you know this is the fifth national election uh that's been held the first that you know managed entirely by afghan leadership uh the first election that's been managed under an election law an electoral framework that was democratically adopted through a legislative process uh and and a robust campaign process and and enthusiasm amongst uh all uh aspects of society to participate in the process and more than anything a broader respect uh for democratic elections uh and for democracy uh as the path to power as you know jen mentioned the election is not over um we still have a tallying a tallying process and a complaints process coming up and continued observation of those processes is going to be very important because you know the election that was all the good that has sort of developed an election day could still be potentially undermined if uh the rest of the process goes poorly um secondly there's uh another election here which is the election of the provincial councils that no one's really talked about and there are going to be you know there were elections in all 34 provinces for 400 and some provincial counselors so there's going to be a transition occurring there as well I think in 2010 something like 70 percent perhaps a bit more of all the the the counselors were newly elected so there'll be a lot of people likely coming into government that have never served before and some attention I think needs to be paid to them as well that's the only some national elective bodies in Afghanistan and they've tended to be neglected in previous years but hopefully they'll play a stronger role in the future thanks and then let me just make the final comment I think that for for as much as we know that the election is not over and many things can still go wrong I don't mind taking a few days to feel a little bit optimistic and a little bit gratified about what happened on Saturday in 2009 when I was working for a CHI who remember very well we had about 10 minutes of satisfaction the election had been concluded before all of the bad news started rolling in and this time five years ago was the beginning of four months of real hell and trying to sort out the mess that that election made I will say that you know for all of the failures of 2009 the success was that the constitutional order was preserved the institutions solved the electoral mess however inelegantly however difficultly and that I think prepared a lot of the ground for what happened on Saturday I think a lot of lessons were learned and learned correctly by a lot of actors by candidates by the IEC by the government by observers and so forth for USIP I think all of those of you who who pointed out the role that we've been playing I think it's more than two and a half years ago we began focusing on these elections and trying to make sure that attention in Washington if it was not constantly focused on the elections was sufficiently focused and understood the importance that these these events will have so I think you know all of you who've been involved for your support all of you who've been coming to these events and paying attention I want to thank Shama Mood not and your panelists not just for participating today but sorry but also for for all of the work that's been done in the last several years on the ground as you know civil society activists as analysts coming here to tell us what's going on obviously as everybody said this is a you know great credit for Afghan voters for Afghan democracy activists and and I think we all appreciate the role you've been played and then finally thanks to all of you who who showed up this morning sorry for going over time this will not be the last discussion of this event it may not it may be the most optimistic discussion of these elections but we will have more events trying to understand and as as as this process unfolds it will hopefully lead to the first peaceful and democratic transition of power in Afghanistan's long long history so thank you very much for coming thank you panelists here and especially in Kabul for staying up so late thanks