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Afghan voters struggle to work out who's who
The Australian - September 18, 2010
Amanda Hodge, Kabul – The one poster that perhaps most accurately reflects Afghanistan's democratic progress features a serious-looking candidate and a giant red question mark.
More than 2500 Afghans – including 406 women – are standing for just 249 lower house seats in today's election and the vast majority have registered as independents, choosing not to reveal their political affiliations – as is their right under the current system.
With such a massive rollcall of candidates it would be difficult for the keenest election buff to make a confident, informed choice between them.
But in Afghanistan, where less than a third of the population is literate and many have little more than the vaguest notion of what democracy actually means, it's near impossible.
"We have so many candidates that, even within ethnicity groups, people are confused about whom they should vote for," NGO worker and part-time political science student Wahab Saifi, 28, told The Weekend Australian yesterday.
"Many people lie to candidates and say they will support them because they don't want to offend their own people. I know colleagues who have promised to vote for one candidate but they aren't even registered to vote."
For all his obvious political interest, Mr Saifi will not be voting, and his reasons sum up the major risks involved in Afghanistan's latest democratic exercise: too difficult and too dangerous.
"I want democracy in the right way but right now it's like a big market and whoever promises the most wins," he says, citing one candidate he knew who promised the one rural village in Kabul province she would build them a new mosque if elected.
"That community has already started tearing down their old mosque, before she's even been elected. People don't understand the process. Most people think democracy means women don't have to wear headscarves and, for them, that's a bad thing."
Prominent Afghan analyst and Kabul province candidate Haroun Mir admits he has paid some people in recent weeks who have come to see him from outlying districts, $US10 ($10.70) or $US20 here and there for transport costs and in a few cases substantially more, in what he insists were acts "more of charity than campaigning".
But he estimates his campaign has cost a relatively modest $US20,000, a figure he says is dwarfed by the millions spent by bigger candidates being bankrolled by political or corporate patrons.
"We don't spend money, we don't even feed people, unlike in other campaign offices where they will put on lunch every day for 500 or 600 people," Mr Mir said.
"I have never paid anyone until now but the last few days are important in that some people could be very effective in influencing others when it comes to voting."
In every way, the system is stacked against Afghans as they prepare once again to brave the polling stations.
The Taliban has again warned of brutal consequences for all those who participate, and warned that election workers and security forces would be the main targets.
"All the roads leading to polling centres will come under attack and election workers and security forces will be our primary targets," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said yesterday.
In the past two months, the Free and Fair Elections Foundation (FEFA), an independent election watchdog, recorded 256 incidents of election violence across the country, 50 per cent of which were against candidates, 18 per cent against constituents and 4 per cent against IEC staff.
The Electoral Complaints Commission – which last year disqualified 1.5 million votes following widespread evidence of electoral fraud – has been effectively neutered by President Hamid Karzai.
Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission has instituted some important reforms by announcing polling stations a month ahead of time – eliminating much of the confusion that enabled officials to stuff ballot boxes and change tallies last year.
It also banned about 6000 electoral workers and volunteers from last year's widely discredited presidential elections who were suspected of foul play, and has vetted at least 36 candidates with links to "illegally armed groups".
But despite those efforts, the FEFA chairman Nader Nadery says many "big fish" had slipped through the net.
During the three-month election campaign, FEFA recorded 583 electoral law violations, 310 of which were perpetrated by government officials, including high-ranking ministers and governors.
Two cases involving governors accused of using state resources to support their own candidates have been referred to the Attorney-General's office for further investigation and numerous fines have been issued for electoral law breaches.
But Mr Nadery said he had been disappointed by the lack of action by both the IEC and ECC.
"We certainly gave the information to the relevant institutions. In some cases, some response was taken, but not in all cases. We were expecting the ECC would take steps to prevent officials from abusing state resources in favour of certain candidates and that (offenders) would be brought to account."
The election's credibility, already faltering, was further damaged this week after 3000 fake Afghan ballot papers printed in neighbouring Pakistan were intercepted as they were smuggled into Ghazni, a central Afghan province tipped to be one of the country's election trouble spots.
In Kandahar – another one – the UN's top envoy to Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, conceded on Thursday: "This is probably one of the worst places and the worst times to have an election anywhere in the world" and called for the result to be seen in perspective.
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