For whom the Afghan poll tolls
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Whatever the August 2009 elections in Afghanistan were to begin with,
they have, in the weeks since the polling day, turned into a completely
different beast.
Based initially on the premise that Afghans needed to have a voice and say in
political participation, the fraud, allegations, counter-allegations, poor
management and even poorer leadership have now brought the entire exercise to a
state where the only way to validate the elections is to ignore the elections
altogether and revert to some pre-electoral system of power-sharing.
On Monday, after weeks of investigation, the United Nations' Electoral
Complaints Commission said that many of President
Hamid Karzai's votes would have to be declared invalid as a result of fraud.
This would most likely bring the total number of his votes below the 50% mark,
which he needs to avoid a run-off against the second-placed candidate, Abdullah
Abdullah. Latest reports indicate Karzai is ready to accept that he fell short
of the votes needed to win an outright victory, which would set the stage for a
possible power-sharing deal with Abdullah.
Initially, the elections were seen as a means of validating a fast unraveling
compact on Afghanistan. The elections were a necessary component for the
international community which needed a signpost of progress in the midst of a
rapidly deteriorating security situation and bad governance, a symbol that
would justify "project Afghanistan" to the increasingly critical domestic
opinion.
At the outset, therefore, the elections were treated by the international
community as a component of the "war against terror" and the Taliban-led
insurgency. Just the exercise of voting was treated as an end in itself, with
Afghans feted for having come out to vote against the insurgents.
In the event, the ballot was neither for nor against the insurgents, but rather
a victory for the efforts of Afghans to exercise their rights to choose elected
representatives, something that was almost ignored in the hurried efforts to
claim victory over the Taliban.
This rush proved counter-productive. Clear evidence of widespread fraud began
to emerge even in the hours after polling, giving rise to the appearance that
the internationals had endorsed a flawed election. It took several days for the
international community to drop its stance that it was for Afghans to determine
the credibility of the elections.
While a section of the international community tried to regain its credibility
by going to the other extreme and declaring immense fraud had taken place,
another section, which had little appetite for a second round of polling, tried
to push for a limited procedure to deal with complaints.
The message was that while Afghans could aspire to polling, the logical
continuum, whether of thorough investigations or re-polling or a run-off, was
far too much of a luxury and one to which a conflict-ridden country should not
aspire, even if it were constitutionally mandated.
It became clear very quickly that the international community had made no
preparation for dealing with the anticipated fraud, having failed to coordinate
even their public responses within their respective organizations, let alone
their approaches. The result was an unprecedented public display of disarray,
compounded by exhibitions of bad behavior, large egos and hubris.
It would be easy to dismiss the clash as one of personalities, except for the
fact that the spectacle, displayed most evidently in the fallout between the
United Nations' top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and his deputy, Peter
Galbraith, was allowed to carry on for several weeks unchecked.
While the UN acted relatively quickly for a massively bureaucratic
organization, by first removing Galbraith from Afghanistan and then dismissing
him, the United States appeared paralyzed, refusing to rein in Galbraith until
well after the damage was done. European nations appeared to be mute
spectators, apparently either unwilling or unable to exercise their influence
to stem this hemorrhage.
There is speculation that the entire performance was well-choreographed from
the beginning, to force an electoral outcome that would necessitate a second
round of polling, thus weakening Karzai and making him more pliable.
However, the price for this has been steep, weakening the international
community's influence in general and the UN's neutrality in particular, while
eroding the credibility of the electoral exercise. Moreover, the internationals
have, over the past few weeks, found themselves completely outmaneuvered by
brilliant tacticians within the Afghan polity who have used the unfolding
events and the international community's disarray to spectacular advantage.
Karzai and his supporters have used the anti-foreigner card as a pressure
tactic, completely ignoring the ground realities which do not conform to a
Afghan-foreigner divide, but rather to internal divides both between Afghans
and within the international community. A section of the internationals has
backed the president, while another section backs Abdullah.
Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has used the elections to reposition
himself, thus getting enormous mileage for his anti-Taliban Northern Alliance
colleagues who have been out in the cold in recent years. Though the current
political system in which the winner takes all would ensure that Abdullah would
gain nothing from a second round of polling - it would most likely endorse
Karzai - the allegations of fraud and the reluctance of all players to go for a
second round have helped provide enormous leverage to Abdullah.
He alone is now in the position of validating the credibility of the results
that are declared and of forgoing the dreaded second round of polling in lieu
of a share in governance.
Lost in the midst of all this politicking is the oft-mentioned Afghan voter:
the same Afghan voter whose name was evoked to justify the necessity of holding
elections, despite the conditions which suggested that a free and fair
franchise would not be possible, and the same Afghan voter whose bravery was
lauded as the raison d'etre of declaring the polls a success.
With a division of the spoils underway to paper over the seminal problems of
the electoral exercise, the Afghan voter's right to a democratic exercise now
seems far and away the least of considerations, leaving a number of questions
unanswered: how many Afghans were excluded from voting by poor management and
insecurity? What of the women voters whose votes were either cast for them or
whose identities were stolen to perpetuate fraud? What of the millions of
voters who did go and vote against the odds, only to find backroom deals among
Afghan and international decision-makers replacing their right to choose?
While most Afghans may have expected Karzai to be reconfirmed as their
president, they would probably have liked their votes to be counted accurately,
just as Republican voters in the US would, despite the overwhelming landslide
victory that Democrat Barack Obama received. Afghan voters might, not
unsurprisingly, also want their simultaneous votes for electing provincial
council members, where victory margins can be as slender as one or two votes,
not to be vitiated by fraud.
The entire exercise raises the question as to why elections were held at all if
there was no appetite or capacity to see the electoral exercise through to its
logical conclusion by ensuring political participation, a credible complaints
process, the space for a second round and mechanisms for an acceptable interim
arrangement?
At a nascent juncture in efforts to build the Afghan state, where increasing
violence makes it even more important to convince Afghans of the need for
peaceful democratic means of power-sharing, decision-making and transfer of
power, the vitiated election Afghanistan has just completed can be
ill-afforded.
The cost of an election which was not inclusive and spectacularly marred by
perceptions of fraud and cover-ups will be paid for in the future by the loss
of faith of ordinary Afghans in their government, their leaders, the
state-building exercise and democratic processes. However, for those with their
eyes focused on short-term fixes and exit strategies, this has never been the
fundamental issue.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who has reported on South Asia
for 19 years and currently lives and reports from Kabul.
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