Afghan Election Represents Break
from Afghanistan's Violent Political Past
Voice of America
10/12/2004
Oct 12, 2004 Washington
Afghanistan's first-ever direct presidential election came off
relatively smoothly last week. Feared attacks by remnants of
the Taleban never materialized. And opposition candidates withdrew
their threat to reject the results because of alleged irregularities,
deferring to a U.N. commission. The election represented a sharp
break from Afghanistan's often violent political past.
Assessing Afghanistan's political development
on the basis of only one election may be akin to reviewing a
multi-act play after only one act is over. Nevertheless, say
analysts, the initial reviews are encouraging.
More than three-fourths of Afghanistan's nearly
10 million registered voters cast ballots. Senior analyst at
the American Enterprise Institute, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former
CIA officer with extensive experience in Afghanistan, says he
was impressed.
"You did not see the kind of violence that
could have paralyzed the process. There obviously may have been
voting irregularities; there always will be in third world countries
such as Afghanistan. But the fact that it could go through this
process so quickly, given the abysmal shape that Afghanistan
is in, is quite impressive."
In an interview, Afghanistan's ambassador to the
United States, Tayeb Said Jawad, said voters were enthusiastic,
and not intimidated by the prospect of violence. He noted an
incident on election day when a rocket landed near a polling
place in Kunar province, where a long line of women waited to
cast their ballots.
"Nobody ran away. Everybody stayed and insisted
on casting their vote. And they said, if we run away from one
rocket attack today, these rocket attacks will continue forever."
These were in fact not Afghanistan's first elections.
There were legislative polls in 1965 and 1969, but they were
indirect elections.
Afghan politics was often conducted at the end
of a gun barrel. The euphoria of the 1992 ouster of a Communist
government by anti-Soviet fighters quickly vanished when squabbling
over power among the victorious mujahedin degenerated into a
civil war. The Taleban stepped into that power vacuum until
it was dislodged by Afghan and U.S. forces in 2001.
Afghan watchers therefore held their breath when
opposition presidential candidates threatened to reject the
outcome of last week's election. In the past, that might have
led to open warfare. But the candidates pulled back from the
brink, agreeing to a U.N.-appointed panel's investigation of
possible vote fraud.
Ambassador Jawad praised the opposition candidates'
decision to back off from the challenge.
"The people of Afghanistan and the politicians
in Afghanistan have matured very much, and they showed a lot
of competence. And I'm glad that the political leadership of
Afghanistan is listening to what the Afghan people demand."
But the candidates had a little foreign encouragement
as well. According to Afghan sources, Western diplomats met
with the opposition candidates with a simple message -- don't
return to the old ways.
Reuel Marc Gerecht at the American Enterprise
Institute says the civil war, as he puts it, "burned Afghans
to their very soul." It is that fear of the old ways, he
says, that is Afghanistan's most potent weapon in its quest
for true peace and stability.
"They may not have a perfect grasp of the
democratic ethic; I'm sure that is not the case. But I'm not
sure that's required. I think what is required is that they
be allergic to those passions and those forces which plunged
Afghanistan literally into an abyss."
That aversion to a bloody past will again
be tested next year, when Afghans return to the polls to choose
a legislature.
