Afghanistan’s Election: A Tale of Violence, Fraud, and Hope
Afghanistan held its second parliamentary election on Saturday amidst evidence of widespread fraud, voting irregularities, and violence. As an exercise for democracy, it fails to impress outside observers, but considering the country’s violent past, the election did bring some measure of hope that even though flawed, Afghanistan does have at least a system in place.
Despite over 10 million eligible voters and 249 seats in the lower house of the parliament up for grabs, only slightly over 40% of the electorate showed up to cast their ballots according to the Independent Electoral Commission, the body that oversees the elections. Over 2,500 candidates took part in the election, about 500 of them women.
Afghanistan is unique in its democratic system in that a quarter of the seats in both houses are reserved for women — ensuring women get some measure of representation. A young democracy, the country has yet to have established political parties and candidates often run on name recognition rather than party platform. And in a country that’s suffering from innumerable problems, issues did not seem to be of any significance at all.
Even though 300,000 soldiers of the Afghan National Army and Afghan police along with 150,000 international forces were out to keep the country’s 34 provinces calm, violence erupted early and continued throughout the election. Taliban insurgents had vowed to disrupt the election, but failed to make the impact they had promised.
The day started with Taliban insurgents firing rockets on the capital Kabul and the city of Jalalabad, the provincial center of Nengrahar province. Later, more rockets were fired on civilian targets as well as polling stations in the provinces of Kunar, Nimroz, Helmand, Ghazni, and Paktika — all in the restive south where Taliban control most of the countryside.
Elsewhere, some polling centers were blown up in Kunar, Khost, and Kandahar provinces. Insurgents also managed to capture some polling stations in Laghman, Kunduz, Badghis, and Helmand provinces. There were multiple explosions across the country, some claiming lives. A landmine exploded in Balkh killing nine and injuring dozens more while another in the province killed three. Thirty four people were killed in separate violent incidents in Nengrahar and Khost. Kabul, Nengrahar, Kunar, and Kandahar provinces were also targeted by insurgents using bombs to disrupt the election. The governor of Kandahar province managed to survive an explosion that shattered his car’s windows.
Taliban tried to take over polling stations in at least two provinces — Kunduz and Nimroz — but were beaten back by security forces. In total, 303 attacks were recorded on Saturday compared to 479 during last year’s presidential election. The number of casualties cannot be fully confirmed yet. Afghan government sources claimed 11 people had died and 40 were injured. Independent sources put the number of civilian deaths in dozens.
Even as people braved such harsh conditions to vote, 8% of polling stations either did not open or failed to function. Some polling stations failed to open at 7 AM and others ran out of ballot papers. Fraud was rampant. Fake voting cards — mostly printed in neighboring Pakistan — were sold by the thousands, mostly in the south. The “indelible” ink that was painted on voters’ fingers to prevent them from voting twice was easily washable. Even worse, ballot-stuffing was rampant, as this story by the Christian Science Monitor suggests.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to do something that we take for granted knowing that you could be killed for it. It must take a lot of courage for those people to abandon everything they have ever known and start over with a brand new system.
God bless them….oops…I mean Allah bless them.
I was there in 2004 and 2005. Was better back then. 2009 was a bloodbath. Pretty bad this year too, but people still tried to go out and vote. Brave indeed.
Those headlines could very well be the headlines we will see after the November 2 elections here since Holder isn’t concerned with the Panthers intimidating the voters here in America. This illegal POTUSINO wants the U.S. in Camps and then he can carry out his drive to dictatorship
The Afghani women are very brave in the face of the hatred and violence that has been the norm for many years. They have been marginalized to starve in the burkas that don’t show decimated, diseased bodies. They have been poisoned and thrown acid at for attending school.The men who want to be in control (sanctioned by “religion”), will not easily give up power. They consider that more important than feeding their families or improving their countries.
Ah… if only Afghan men would stop fighting, eh?
I always find it inspiring to see people doing their best to participate in elections, even despite significant danger, such as the current election i Afghanistan. I remember that the first Iraqi elections had a voter turnout of over 80%, which was remarkable considering the danger from snipers, homicide bombers, and IEDs. Here in Canada, we’re lucky to get 60% turnout in a national election and we never have to risk anything more than a few drops of rain or a few flakes of snow.
It’s discouraging to see that the turnout as low as it was in the current Afghanistan election. The easily washable ink is particularly galling. How did they manage to mess THAT up? Surely buying and distributing a quantity of ink shouldn’t be beyond the skills of the Afghanis and the international forces there to help them! Or was the ink deliberately replaced with washable ink in an attempt to mess with the elections?
Congratulations to the Afghani and ISAF forces for slowing down the Taliban as much as they did!
Well, Henry,
The ink issue I think is incompetence. I think there might be several reasons as to why. The most key culprit in my opinion is corrupt politicians and election workers. As for participation, I think it depends on the democracy.
40% in Afghanistan sounds more like 60% in Canada. Surely, more people would have gone out to vote, IF they felt safe enough about it. As for whether it was a success, I think rigged elections are better than no elections at all. Better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all, eh?
This sorta sounds like where the liberals are trying to lead America.
I find it laughable the politicans in our country (America)even mention the corruption in elections around the world. Our last presidentian election was little more than elections in any of the banana republics. obama using the Chicago style of politics corrupted our free and honest system of electing our represenative government, ACORN, the new black panthers, I wonder exactly how many dead people voted, how many people were bussed to different voting sites to vote again and again. The late great United States of America now just another banana republic with our own version of Hugo Chavez !