Afghanistan Gears Up For Historic Presidential Election
Larry Luxner
The Washington Diplomat
10/02/2004
On Oct. 9—barring another assassination
attempt against President Hamid Karzai and any other unanticipated
violence—Afghanistan will hold the first presidential
election in its history.
For now, Karzai is the undisputed front-runner.
Current polls give him around 78 percent of the vote, well over
the 50 percent threshold he needs to avoid a runoff election.
None of the other 17 candidates, including one woman, even comes
close in popularity, although what’s important here is
that Afghanistan is having an election at all.
"People have a vested interest in this process,
to make sure Afghanistan will never again go back to the days
of terror and tyranny," said Afghanistan’s ambassador
to the United States, Said Tayeb Jawad. "People are determined
to use their constitutional right to establish a civil society
based on the rule of law."
Jawad told The Washington Diplomat that about
10.5 million Afghans are eligible to vote, of which 10.1 million
have already registered. Of those, about 41 percent are female
voters—not a small accomplishment considering the years
of Taliban persecution against Afghan women.
"We are facing some real security challenges,
but overall, the terrorists and the Taliban are going after
soft targets, so they’re not really a serious threat to
the electoral process," he said. "They’re basically
killing road builders, U.N. workers and Afghan civil servants."
So far this year, said Jawad, more than 2,500
Afghans have been murdered in terrorist attacks, and thousands
more have been injured.
On Sept. 16, however, the violence escalated with
an attempted assassination of Karzai in Gardez, a village 30
miles outside of Kabul, the capital. Three men suspected of
being Taliban loyalists have been arrested for the attack, in
which a rocket was fired at Karzai’s helicopter but missed
its target. Four days later, a convoy carrying Vice President
Nematullah Shahrani was targeted in a roadside bomb attack in
Kunduz province, north of Kabul. A Taliban spokesman claimed
responsibility for the explosion and vowed there would be more
incidents as election day approached.
In late July, a British parliamentary committee
warned that Afghanistan is likely to collapse unless more troops
and resources are sent to calm the country. The Foreign Affairs
Select Committee said that warlord violence and the struggle
between U.S.-led troops and insurgents continues to be a threat
to security in Afghanistan.
"There is a real danger if resources are
not provided soon that Afghanistan—a fragile state in
one of the most sensitive and volatile regions of the world—could
implode, with terrible consequences," the committee said
in its report.
Afghanistan, which is grappling with a growing
drug trade and sporadic violence, is a key security concern
for the West, two years after a U.S.-led coalition toppled the
militant Islamic Taliban regime for harboring al Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden.
There are about 20,000 U.S.-led troops and 6,500
NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan. However, warlords have
yet to be disarmed, and a Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency is
persisting in the south and east.
"We’re fighting an active war against
al Qaeda," said Jawad. "We’re also facing challenges
due to warlords and narco-traffickers, who have the shared objective
of preventing Afghanistan from becoming a stable country."
Jawad said the election will be carried out by
a management body comprising the United Nations and the Afghan
government. The United States is footing much of the cost of
the election, estimated at $140 million. "This is not a
luxury. It’s a very good investment in the future of our
country," he said.
When Afghans go to the polls Oct. 9, they won’t
find electronic voting machines. Instead, ballots will be counted
the traditional way, and voters’ thumbs will be marked
with ink that lasts for three days and prevents people from
voting twice.
"The possibility of fraud is rather limited,"
said Jawad. "Rather, our main concern is intimidation by
warlords. The process of demobilizing all the private militias
has not been completed, and some local strongmen might be able
to use their guns or money to influence the vote."
To mitigate that danger, Jawad said, the United
Nations, the Afghan government and some U.S.-based nongovernmental
organizations have implemented an extensive program to educate
citizens about the importance of participatory democracy.
Backing up those nongovernmental organizations
are 20,000 Afghan police, as well as 12,000 soldiers and officers
belonging to the Afghan National Army. So far, according to
the embassy, 13,142 combatants have been disarmed, while 10,561
are going through reintegration programs. UNICEF reports that
2,203 child soldiers ages 14 to 18 have been demobilized since
February 2004.
About 1.3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan
and another million or so in Iran will be eligible to vote in
the upcoming election, although the 250,000 or so Afghanis living
in the United States won’t be able to cast ballots "due
to logistical problems and the shortage of funds," said
Jawad.
Parliamentary elections for the Wolesi Jirga won’t
take place until April 2005, mainly because they require much
more preparation. "Logistically, the boundaries of provinces
and districts have to be readjusted, and we need more time to
prepare for political parties," Jawad said.
So far, about 50 parties have been registered,
although for the moment, all presidential candidates are running
as individuals.
Even though the Afghan Embassy must remain officially
neutral regarding the election, there’s little question
where Jawad’s loyalties lie.
"Hamid Karzai is the candidate with the most
name recognition throughout Afghanistan. He also has strong
support from the international community," the ambassador
said. "President Karzai is the only candidate campaigning
based on a national platform, emphasizing partnership, cooperation
and national unity."
In late September, Karzai’s former interior
minister and chief rival for the presidency, Yonus Qanooni,
publicly rejected a proposal by Karzai that the two men join
forces in a future government. The Washington Post reported
that Qanooni’s last-minute entry into the presidential
race has raised fears that the election will fragment along
ethnic lines, with Qanooni representing ethnic Tajiks against
Karzai, a member of the larger Pashtun ethnic group. Under Afghan
law, the winning candidate must receive an absolute majority
of the vote, or 50 percent plus one.
"One reason we have 17 candidates facing
President Karzai is that they’re hoping to divide the
vote so much that Karzai will be forced to have a runoff,"
said Jawad. "It’s almost certain that Karzai will
win. The question is whether there will be a runoff or not.
Other candidates have not joined hands. Their strategy is to
keep the votes divided."
He added that women are making a "strong
comeback," but that potentially divisive social issues,
such as the right to divorce, aren’t being discussed for
fear of triggering a fundamentalist backlash.
"Women are participating in every aspect
of political life in the country," Jawad said. "They
played a very important role in drafting the new constitution
for Afghanistan, which provides that 25 percent of all seats
be allocated for women. But in the meantime, we are fighting
a war against al Qaeda. The terrorists would like to undermine
the Islamic credentials of the government. Therefore, women
activists are careful not to offend traditional and Islamic
values, in order to prevent creating unnecessary enemies for
themselves."
Rather, they’re focusing on education, which
Jawad said is a very real concern—especially considering
that only 10 percent of Afghan women know how to read and write
(compared to 30 percent of the general population).
Grant Kippen, Afghanistan country director for
the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, said it’s
important to remember that elections are but one part of a much
longer democratic process.
"The evolution of this country from a conflict-ridden
state to a modern developing nation will take time," he
said. "The majority of people and institutions participating
in the Oct. 9 elections will be doing so for the first time
in their lives. We should not lose sight of the fact that this
exercise will be an important learning experience for both the
democratic organizations and voters, so we need to be patient
and supportive."
Larry Luxner is a contributing writer for The
Washington Diplomat
