Afghan Vote Already Failing to Bring Democracy

The American-led invasion of Afghanistan was right, and it offered Afghanistan an opportunity to recover from the predations of the Taleban. Adequate forces would have allowed security to increase, and that is the basis of any election. Instead, the Bush administration misled the nation into Iraq, and 137,000 troops that could be building a democratic Afghanistan are propping up a no-name regime installed in a secret Baghdad ceremony in June. Afghan democracy will be still-born. That isn’t just the opinion of this journal. The UN, OSCE and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission agree.

The writ of Hamid Karzai’s caretaker government doesn’t extend beyond the suburbs of Kabul. Afghanistan has reverted to rule by local warlord, which given its territory may be its natural state. A report by AIHRC says that these warlords, by controlling the guns and the money in a district, have “the potential to distort the free expression of popular will.”

If the local boss isn’t bossing, then the local terrorists are terrorizing. The same report says that the extremists on the loose are working to increase “insecurity in those areas where extremist groups are bent on undermining, by violent means, a political process that they fear.” Terror attacks can halt the voting – after all September 11, 2001 was primary day in New York City, and the voting was rescheduled.

Perhaps the best measure of the situation is the tone of the AIHRC. Chairwoman Sima Samar has said, “We don't expect a 100% free and fair election but ... at least if it is 60% free and fair we will be satisfied.” If 60% going into the process is satisfactory, how bad must things be on the ground?

It is almost certainly too late to fix things before the voting starts on October 9. There will not likely be enough poll watchers and workers at the 25,000 polling places. And it may take as long as a week to move some ballot boxes from their polling sites to the counting centers. While Hamid Karzai is favored to win, and likely will in either a fair or unfair election, one’s faith in the future of Afghanistan’s democracy would be greater if the liberators of the nation had finished the job they started doing.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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