Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), on
Sunday stressed the High Peace Consultative Board (HPCB) should be a team
of highly qualified persons, saying the government might play the same
game it played with his party under their peace deal.

On the other hand, Hekmatyar demanded invalidation of all non-biometric
votes cast during the Wolesi Jirga polls on October 20. He also opposed
the proposed post of a chief executive for future government and said he
was ready to introduce a joint electoral ticket with the Taliban.

High Peace Consultative Board (HPCB)

Talking at a press conference here, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said, “Peace is
our priority and we support any efforts that take us to peace.”

He said the performance of the government showed it lacked will, capacity
and plans for peace in the country and now trying to play the same game
with the Taliban as it played with the HIA.

A peace agreement between Hekmatyar and the government was signed on
September 23, 2017.

He said the US’s special representative for Afghan peace process, Zalmay
Khalilzad had asked the Kabul government and the Taliban to introduce
their authorized teams, but the government created the HPCB instead of
introducing a qualified team.

He said the HPCB would only provide advises and the president would make
decisions.

The government on December 11 announced the HPCB comprised of 33 members
including Hekmatyar and other prominent former jihadi and political
leaders. The president, his deputies, the CEO and his deputies are part of
the board.

Hekmatyar said all political parties had rejected the creation of HPCB and
only the government members accepted it.

“If the government really has the will for peace, then it should introduce
a highly qualified team which not only provide advices but also have the
decision making authority”, he said.

He said besides the president, the CEO and their deputies and parliament
heads, the figures that had strong commitment for peace and opposed the
war should also be included in the government’s peace team.

“The government is treating the peace process as it treated the Wolesi
Jirga elections”, he said.

A number of political parties had earlier also opposed the creation of
HPCB, saying they were not part of it.

Wolesi Jirga elections

Hekmatyar called the October 20 and 21 Wolesi Jirga elections as shameful
and fraudulent and said the results of the polls were engineered by
government officials and many winning candidates had failed and many
failing candidates had succeeded by paying thousands of USD in bribe.”

“Political parties do not accept the results of the elections and they
would not reverse from their position until it is fair to react,” he
said.

“The Taliban taunt us that we (HIA) left war trenches for change in the
country through elections but we did not reach this result, yes the
government intead more empowered insurgents through these elections,” he
said.

He added, “Former US envoy to Afghanistan had told me that if the HIA wins
most of the Wolesi Jirga votes, they would accept their government.”

Despite widespread fraud and opposition, the HIA was able to secure most
of the votes, he said, adding that the HIA candidates secured one-thirds
of all votes cast.

About invalidation of Kabul votes by the Independent Electoral Cmoplaints
Comission (IECC), he said his party’s opponents were behind the decision.
He said most of HIA candidates from Kabul were winners.

However, the IECC has said it would review invalidation of all Kabul votes
and would share their results in the next few days.

Hekmatyar said election crisis was solvable only through invalidation of
non-biometric votes, otherwise the polls should be cancelled and
re-conducted together with the presidential elections in 2019.

“Invalidation of non-biometric votes is the demand of all political
parties and 2,300 candidates,” he said.

Presidential elections

Hekmatyar said his party did not want to independently participate in the
presidential election but wanted to have a joint ticket with other
political forces.

He said the HIA met almost all possible candidates in the presidential
election and leaders of the Grand National Alliance, a coalition of
several political parties.

“Presence of a chief executive post in election tickets is unacceptable
for the HIA and any changes in the system should be based on the
Constitution and Loya Jirga”, he said.

“Our stance is very clear, we would not be in a ticket that includes CE
position, we would not be in tickets who want to share power or make power
islands,” he said.

Hekmatyar added he also sent a message to the Taliban to make an electoral
alliance with his party. He said he was ready to meet Taliban
representatives in a third country to discuss a joint ticket. He said he
was awaiting the Taliban’s response.