Parliamentary Elections, 18 September 2010

Following an invitation from the Afghan Independent Election Commission to support Afghanistan's election process, the OSCE Permanent Council tasked ODIHR with deploying an election support team.

A team of eight experts was deployed to Kabul on 9 September for a period of five weeks.

According to the team's final report: "The parliamentary elections have shown some progress made in holding elections, but they also underscored a number of serious challenges that need to be addressed in the coming years. These challenges are not new. In 2009 alone, the OSCE/ODIHR offered 136 recommendations to improve the conduct of Afghan elections.  Combined with 2004 and 2005 OSCE/ODIHR reports, as well as those of domestic and international observers, there now exists a comprehensive body of recommendations on electoral reform."