wolesi jirga

September 04, 2010

Polling Centers: To Close or Not To Close

The decision by Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) to remove nearly a thousand polling centers from its preliminary lists has drawn considerable attention; Democracy International continues its analysis of this move with a province-by-province comparison to 2009 polling centers the IEC says opened.

September 04, 2010

Polling Center Comparisons 2009-2010

After a review conducted by Afghan and international security forces, the Afghan Independent Election Commission issued a final list of 5,897 Polling Centers on August 18, 2010. This was less than the 6,835 centers developed in its preliminary list for 2010, which has not been made public.

Update: On September 7, 2010, the IEC announced the closure of an additional 81 Polling Centers in Nangahar province due to security concerns. This change is now reflected in the map and chart attached below.

September 02, 2010

Afghanistan's "Lottery Effect"

For all the challenges of campaigning in Afghanistan, candidates in the upcoming elections for the Wolesi Jirga lower house of parliament can take comfort in the fact that winning a seat can sometimes be a matter of securing less than one percent of the vote in their province.

Afghanistan operates under the Single Non-Transferrable Vote (SNTV) system, first chosen by President Hamid Karzai for the founding elections for the Wolesi Jirga in 2005. SNTV is used elsewhere in Jordan, Vanuatu and the upper houses of Indonesia and Thailand.

August 31, 2010

Afghan 2010 Basics: Wolesi Jirga

The Wolesi Jirga, or House of the People, is the supreme law-making body in Afghanistan. The 249-seat assembly sits alongside the Meshrano Jirga to form Afghanistan’s bi-cameral parliament.