Afghanistan's Unpromising Elections

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Afghanistan's Unpromising Elections
September 17, 2010
Author: Greg Bruno

A donkey transports ballot boxes to villages unreachable by vehicles in Panjshir province, north of Kabul September 17, 2010. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood
When Afghanistan voted for its first post-Taliban parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, in September 2005, the exercise was hailed as a litmus test for the country's future. Former president George W. Bush dubbed that election "a major step forward in Afghanistan's development as a democratic state." Then-Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, speaking at CFR, called it a "landmark event" for a war-ravaged nation.
Yet as voters headed to the polls this weekend to cast ballots in their county's second parliamentary election, international observers seemed inclined to downplay expectations (WSJ). With good reason.
Violence in Afghanistan is near an all-time high, attacks against aid groups are spiking , and Taliban commanders have vowed to derail the voting with threats and constant harassment (AFP). Since campaigning began in late June, three candidates and eleven of their staffers have been killed by the Taliban or local warlords. "Many more have been abducted, assaulted, intimidated, and seriously injured," notes the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, an independent monitoring board. Even the UN has pulled out a third of its international staff in anticipation of bloodshed (Guardian).
Few, therefore, expect Election Day to be fraud-free. Fake ballots have been uncovered in Pakistan (RFE/RL), and entrenched candidates have already been accused of buying votes from local constituents. Staffan de Mistura, the UN's special envoy to Afghanistan, says he expects the elections to be "far from" perfect, if somewhat better than the 2009 presidential voting in which allegations of ballot-box stuffing and impropriety were widespread. Afghan election officials have equally modest goals. "If our polling staff applies [election procedures] properly," Afghan Independent Election Commission chief Fazal Ahmad Manawi told journalists in Kabul this week, "no one will be able to vote more than once."
Domestic political realities in the West are no doubt factoring into the revised electoral ambitions, amid concern that linking Afghanistan's future to free and fair elections might meet with disappointment at the polls. In December, U.S. President Barack Obama will lead a review of Afghan war strategy; some analysts believe without clear signs of progress, the United States will be forced to change course (Reuters), perhaps accelerating a planned troop drawdown. In European capitals, pessimism is even more pronounced, a recent study by the German newspaper Der Spiegel found. NATO nations have already begun scaling back troop commitments in response to public pressure (WashPost).
Rather than focus on the elections, then, the U.S. is concentrating on the country's deteriorating security by adding more troops (at an increasing cost), while pushing Afghan officials to clamp down on fraud. Among the thorniest issues to surface in recent weeks have been allegations of fraud inside Afghanistan's shaky financial sector, including reports of cronyism and mismanagement at the troubled Kabulbank (Reuters).
During a White House news conference on September 10, President Obama called on President Hamid Karzai to restore Afghans' confidence in the government by rooting out corruption. "Is it going to happen overnight? Probably not," Obama opined. But nor will it happen with one more trip to the ballot box , argues Noah Coburn of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a Kabul-based think tank. "Instead," Coburn writes, "the Afghan government and international organizations need to take the challenges of the 2010 election as an opportunity to start serious conversations about how corruption and impunity are creating instability." Put another way, it's not elections that will set Afghanistan's course, but how democracy is implemented (Registan.net) that matters most.
Additional Analysis
The Center for Strategic and International Studies examines the critical issues confronting Afghans as they head to the polls this weekend.
Thomas Ruttig, a senior analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network, explains why political parties and party lists have not taken off in Afghanistan

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MARJA,
Afghanistan — The first voter here was Muhammad Akbar, 22, who dipped his finger in the indelible purple ink, collected his ballot and had just stepped into the cardboard box that serves as a voting booth when gunfire broke out.


The Taliban had vowed to disrupt Afghanistan’s parliamentary election and sought to make good on that promise throughout the country on Saturday. At least 10 people were killed, scores of polling stations were attacked and hundreds of them apparently never opened.

Even where there was no shooting, turnout appeared to be unusually light. Many polling centers were largely empty for most of the day, in sharp contrast with presidential elections a year ago, where voters waited in long lines to vote. And where there was voting, there were numerous reports of fraud, from vote-buying to ballot-stuffing.

Nonetheless, Afghan officials insisted that in most places the election, a crucial measure of the government’s ability to function on its own before American troops begin to withdraw next year, went ahead without major incident.

“Though there were numerous attacks, none were severe enough to disrupt voting on a wide scale,” the independent Afghan monitoring organization, the Free and Fair Elections Foundation, said in a statement.

There were no nationwide figures on voter turnout, and results of the elections, in which 2,500 candidates ran for 249 seats, were not expected for several days, postponing any conclusive assessment. The presidential election last year was so fraud-ridden that nearly a quarter of the votes were thrown out, the recounting dragged on for months, and accusations of electoral malfeasance by President Hamid Karzai’s campaign drove a rift between his government and the United States that has yet to heal.

This year, the Taliban are stronger than they were last year, and they have waged a campaign of intimidation and violence aimed at derailing the election.

In Marja, which remains one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan seven months after a Marine Corps-led offensive to oust the Taliban from this Helmand Province stronghold, they appeared to have succeeded.

“The people were coming here to vote, but the shooting stopped them,” said Abdul Bari, 20, the chief election worker at a polling place in southern Marja, in a small whitewashed building that is the area’s new high school.

By 10:30 a.m., as bullets whizzed overhead and grenades exploded nearby, only 27 voters had cast their ballots there. By the end of the day, there were unconfirmed reports that 400 voters had cast ballots in southern Marja’s six polling places, none of which was directly attacked.

The Marines had hoped that more voters in this community of 80,000 people of the would have turned out. “A thousand people would have been a win,” said Colonel Ellison, who had walked around the deserted streets trying to encourage the few people he saw to vote. “It’s frustrating to me that people are intimidated by three or four people running around their village.”

In Kandahar city, the other major Taliban redoubt in southern Afghanistan, explosions were heard every half-hour through the morning, and officials said there were five rocket attacks and 10 bombs detonated in and around the city, although only two policemen were wounded.

The governor of Kandahar Province, Tooryalai Wesa, was touring polling places to encourage voters to turn out, but his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, slightly damaging his armored car but hurting no one.

Those who did vote in Kandahar were nervous. “I am so scared to come to the polling station,” said Shafiqa, 49. “My family insisted I not come, but I have to because this is my country and I want to use my vote for someone I like.”

The Taliban used every conceivable tactic to dissuade people from voting, firing rockets at polling places, kidnapping campaign workers, planting a bomb in the toilet of a mosque that was to be used as a polling place, and threatening to amputate not only fingers with voting ink on them, but noses and ears of those who dared to vote.

Nationwide, the authorities said that 92 percent of 5,816 polling centers had opened as planned, and there was no word from the other 8 percent, raising concerns that security conditions had forced them to close, according to the Independent Election Commission. An additional 1,000 polling centers had been closed before Election Day because the authorities could not secure them.

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KABUL:
Men in traditional tunics and women covered in sky-blue burqas trickled into polling centres to vote in Afghanistan's parliamentary election Saturday, as scattered attacks and the closure of some voting sites by insurgents underscored the difficulty of trying to hold a vote in a country at war.

At least two people were killed in the first hours of polling, officials said.

The poll — the first since a fraud-marred presidential election last year — is a test of the Afghan government's ability to conduct a safe and fair vote after months of pledges of reform.

The number of attacks and the willingness of people to turn out at the polls will also be a measure of the strength of the insurgents, who vowed to disrupt the vote.

Rockets struck major cities throughout the country — the first one slamming into the capital before dawn, followed in the next few hours by a series of rockets in eastern Ghazni, Gardez and Jalalabad cities, as well as in Kandahar and Nimroz in the south and old Baghlan in the north. The Baghlan rocket killed two civilians, police spokesman Kamen Khan said.

The Taliban had warned ahead of the vote that those who cast ballots and those working the polls would be attacked.

About 2,500 candidates are vying for 249 seats in the parliament. Observers have said they expect the vote in a country where many areas are under threat from insurgents to be far from perfect, but hopefully accepted by the Afghan people as legitimate.

In Nangarhar's troubled Surkh Rud district, the Taliban blocked two voting centres from opening until late morning. A resident, Kasim, said Taliban were patrolling the area to prevent residents from going to the local centre or going elsewhere to vote. Kasim, like many Afghans, only used one name.

As midday approached, however, area residents said Nato and Afghan forces arrived, prompting the Taliban to flee and allowing the voting centres to open.

Despite the violence and threats, there were Afghans who were determined to cast their ballots.

At an elementary school in eastern Kabul, doors opened on time and a line of 15 or 20 men who had been waiting outside filed in to cast ballots.

Mohammad Husman, a 50-year-old government worker, was at the head of the line in a crisp white traditional tunic.

''I came here because I want prosperity for Afghanistan, stability for Afghanistan,'' Husman said.

''I'm worried about security and fraud. I hope my vote goes to the person I picked to vote for.''

He said he arrived a half an hour before the station was scheduled to open.

Turnout countrywide appeared to be spotty at best. In one neighbourhood of western Kabul, all the voting centres were packed from early morning.

At a mosque that was serving as a voting centre, a line of about a hundred men waited to vote. Elsewhere in the city, people came through in handfuls to nearly empty voting centres.

In eastern Ghazni province a series of rockets fired into the capital and surrounding areas scared many voters, who decided against venturing out to vote.

Sayed Ismail Jahangir, spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province, said people began to arrive at polling centres in late morning.

One women's polling station in Jalalabad was humming with people. A steady stream of women with their burqas thrown back over their heads came to vote, some clutching the cards of candidate Nurzia Atmar.

One of the women said Atmar had provided buses to bring them to the polling booth.

''We are all afraid something will happen but we wanted to come. Maybe she can do something for us,'' said the woman, whose name was also Nurzia. She did not give her full name for security reasons.

President Hamid Karzai cast his vote at a high school in the capital. He said he hoped voters would not be deterred by the attacks.

The election will ''take the country many steps forward to a better future,'' Karzai said.

Last year's presidential election was similarly seen as a chance for the government to move forward to a more democratic future, then complaints of ballot-box stuffing and misconduct mounted, much of it to Karzai's benefit.

Though Karzai still emerged the victor, the drawn-out process and recalcitrance of the Afghan president to acknowledge corruption within the administration led many of the government's international backers to question their commitment to Afghanistan.

There are about 140,000 Nato troops in the country, and the international community has spent billions trying to shore up the Karzai administration in the face of a strengthening insurgency.

Questions about fraud-prevention measures started to arise within a few hours of the polls opening.

Mohammad Hawaid, representative of an election candidate at one of the polling stations, complained that the ink that is applied on fingers of voters to prevent them from casting their ballots multiple times, is not working.

"It can be wiped off," Hawaid said. "This is a major irregularity". The ink is supposed to last at least 72 hours and be resistant to bleach — reappearing within a few minutes.

In Jalalabad, observers said poll workers were letting people vote with faked registration cards.

"The women coming here have so many cards that don't have the stamp and are not real cards but still they are voting," said Nazreen, a monitor for the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, which has dispatched observers throughout the country.
Fake voter cards flooded into Afghanistan ahead of the poll, but election officials had promised that poll workers were trained on how to spot them and would not let ineligible voters cast ballots.

In Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold in the south, voters ventured out of their homes and headed to the polls in small groups, despite the rocket attack and several blasts across Kandahar city. One of the bombs targeted the convoy of Gov. Tooryalai Wesa as it was driving between voting centres, said police officer Abdul Manan. No one was injured.

Wesa still urged Kandaharis to come out and vote.

"The situation is under control," Wesa said. "There's nothing to be afraid of. The enemy wants the election to fail, so if you want the insurgents out of your land, you'll have to come out and vote."

Vehicles without special election passes were banned from Kandahar's streets. Law enforcement, intelligence and government officials were monitoring various parts of the province via satellite television hook-ups from the governor's compound.

Kandahar taxi driver Lalia Agha, 26, said he was pleased with election day security and was happy that inside the voting centre, more than one place had been set up to cast ballots. That, he said, eliminates lines and crowds that could be targeted by insurgents.

"I have a lot of expectations for this election. With our candidates, we can send our voice to the parliament," Agha said. "The election is the only thing we have in our hands in which to change our future."

At least 24 people have been killed in election-related violence preceding the vote, including four candidates, according to observers. In the past two days, Taliban militants abducted 18 election workers from a house in northern Bagdhis province, and a candidate was kidnapped in eastern Laghman province.

Nato said Saturday that coalition forces have conducted 12 operations in seven Afghan provinces in the past week against insurgents planning to disrupt the vote. Three insurgents were killed and several captured, the military alliance said.

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Kabul, Afghanistan —
Nine Western service members died Tuesday in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan, making this the deadliest year for NATO in the nine-year war.

Military officials did not immediately disclose the nationalities of the dead or say precisely where the crash happened. Two other Western troops, an Afghan soldier and an American civilian were injured, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

But an ISAF official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said the crash took place in Zabul province, a Taliban stronghold. A provincial spokesman said the chopper went down in the Daichopan district.


combat deaths in June and July had spiked to the highest levels of the conflict. With Tuesday's crash, according to icasualties.org, 529 members of the international force have been killed this year. The previous high was 2009, when 521 Western troops were killed, according to the website's tally.

The south is the most active battle front in the war, and it is the region where most American troops who arrived as part of the summer's "surge" have been deployed. About 100,000 Americans are in Afghanistan now; they make up two-thirds of the Western force.

The Western military said there were no reports of enemy fire in the area of the crash, which was the deadliest of the year. The incident was under investigation.

Taliban fighters have been unable to shoot down Western helicopters in large numbers, but insurgent fire brought down a Canadian chopper last month in Kandahar province, injuring eight troops. Another helicopter was shot down in June in Helmand province, killing four Western troops.

The summer saw a rash of helicopter crashes, mainly in the south. Another crash in Kandahar province in June killed three Australian servicemen and the U.S. pilot.

In a far-flung country with relatively few passable roads, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's war effort relies heavily on helicopters