Afghanistan votes

[namaal]

Afghanistan votes
Saturday, April 05, 2014
From Print Edition
The News

Fears of violence and rigging threaten to overshadow the balloting in Afghanistan’s presidential elections today. The Taliban had made their destructive intentions clear with an attack on the luxury Kabul hotel last month which killed eight people. This was followed up on Friday with a shooting in Khost in which photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus was killed and veteran reporter Kathy Gannon critically injured. The Taliban have always been a threat to the fledgling democracy, declaring both the concept of elections and the fact that they are being conducted under US occupation as illegitimate. Meanwhile, a recent poll found that over a quarter of respondents doubted the election would be honest. At the same time, excitement for the election is high enough that in the same poll 75 percent said that they still intended to vote. The first presidential election without Hamid Karzai on the ballot promises to be a close affair, with neither favourite Ashraf Ghani or Abdullah Abdullah expected to garner the necessary 50 percent to avoid a run-off. Both candidates are technocrats who served under Karzai at some point as finance and foreign ministers, respectively, and have vowed to concentrate on development at home.

Ghani and Abdullah have also mounted an impressive effort to overcome the ethnic divisions that plague Afghanistan. Ghani is ethnically Pakhtun but has chosen the Uzbek Abdul Rashid Dostum as his running mate while Abdullah, Tajik from his father’s side, has aligned himself with both Hazaras and Pakthuns on his ticket. The US, always looming over these exercises in voting, may be more restrained in its interference this time since all eight candidates have come out in support of the Bilateral Security Agreement. Karzai had annoyed the US by refusing to sign it even though the jirga he had convened to discuss the matter recommended doing so. Ultimately, Karzai may have done the US an inadvertent favour since he is now a lame duck and the next president will have the mandate to reach a deal with the occupying force. As with all elections in Afghanistan, the stakes are high and the threat of violence very real. That a majority of the country is still expected to make it to the polls only shows how badly they want an opportunity to finally control their own destiny.