Afghanistan's discredited elections

Local politicians are adjusting to democracy without radically departing from Afghan traditions, writes Nushin Arbabzadah

By Nushin Arbabzadah
AsiaMedia Contributing Writer

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Afghan election campaign officially opened last week and the people of Kabul woke up to a city covered in images of presidential hopefuls. "We are not in love with your faces," said an editorial in Hasht-e Sobh newspaper, pointing out that none of the candidates had come up with a solid plan for the country's future. "One of them is wearing a Pakol hat, the other a tie, and another a home-spun woolly. Are they taking us for a ride?" it continued.

The following day, at least half of the posters were torn, triggering speculation in the local media. Who was tearing the posters and why? President Hamid Karzai's rivals? Angry Afghans? Or a bunch of troublemakers paid to vandalize the city? Pajhwok news agency sent out a journalist to investigate and discovered that the culprits were children. To be more precise, schoolboys between the ages of seven and 14 who vandalized the posters on their way home after school. One of them explained his action with "I don't like them." He was asked why and he said, "Why not? I don't have to like them."

Even those posters with copycat "support change" messages are obviously not enough. The people want public debates between candidates, proper plans and solid strategies. Responding to this pressure, Karzai was today reported to have agreed on holding a public debate with key rival candidates. The president's nervous eye-twitching and increasingly incomprehensible speech have been causing alarm in the local media of late, raising doubts over Karzai's mental wellbeing. His agreeing to a debate could be interpreted as an attempt to dismiss such concerns.

But despite all its flaws -- including voter registration cards distributed to newly born babies (one of them, even, is yet to be born; the birth year on the card is 2010); a candidate who was banned because he had smuggled drugs into the United States in the 1990s; and the fact that 12 districts are under Taliban control and hence, barred from voting -- this presidential election is in some ways more interesting than the one of 2004.

The world has changed since 2004 and so has Afghanistan. Regionally, the United State’s magical spell as the global police force has been broken due to its failure to curb the Taliban insurgency. This, in turn, has given Afghanistan's neighbors a new burst of energy and fresh hopes of influencing the country's future. Iran, in particular, has grown in confidence because of its successful bullying of the United States in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Russia's interest has equally intensified, especially after the conflict in Georgia, which has given Russia's southern borders new strategic significance. This is not to mention India and Pakistan, whose proxy border conflict is in part being played out in Afghanistan.

On the ground in Afghanistan, nothing is the same. Ethnic minority leaders have lost their momentum largely because of their eagerness to trade their constituents' interests for favors from Karzai. The Hazara leadership is a prime example of this, having failed to solve the recurrent nomad versus settled Hazara population's conflict in Behsud. The conflict resulted in bloodshed last year and bloodshed is likely to reoccur as a solution is yet to be found. But more importantly, Karzai himself is no longer the same. He started off as a hapless gomnaam, or nobody, in constant need of direction from Zalmay Khalilzad. But today, Karzai has successfully managed to broker deals with potential presidential rivals behind closed doors, and now has the endorsement of a powerful group of individuals which includes leaders of Tajiks and Hazaras.

His magic trick? Offering ministerial and other lucrative government posts in return for endorsement or promising to turn districts into provinces and in doing so, artificially enhancing the power of provincial strongmen. For example, the Wahdat party's leadership, which has a mainly Hazara support base, has been allegedly offered five ministries in return for endorsing Karzai's presidency. Karzai has been successfully following the divide-and-rule principle in his own country.

Endorsement for Karzai has at times taken extraordinary forms. The head of the Afghan peace commission, Sebghatullah Mojaddedi, for example, recently told the nation that he had been given instructions from Allah to support Karzai. The divine intervention in the presidential campaign raised many eyebrows, leading to satire and mockery in the local media. Yet Mojaddedi's public pronouncement is only one example of how Afghan politicians are trying to adjust to democracy without radically departing from Afghan traditions.

The Mojaddedis have for long been Afghanistan's kingmakers, with the tradition of Sufi endorsement of political leadership going back to Ahmad Shah Abdali and the country's foundation. Yet a new generation of Afghan voters is increasingly demanding for a line to be drawn between the past and the present and for Afghanistan to become a proper democracy with democratic institutions, political parties and a federally run government. They argue that the ad-hoc mixing of tradition with modern democratic structures is doomed to failure as Afghan traditions often result in ethnic politics and personality cults, both of which undermine long-term stability.

Be this as it may, and judging by the local media reactions, Afghans are watching the election campaign with little enthusiasm. The United States’ reluctance to identify its favorite candidate has added to the confusion, as most Afghans find it hard to believe that Washington can be truly neutral. The suspicion is justified, bearing in mind that the United States is heavily involved in all aspects of Afghan life, from military operations to reconstruction, to the fight against the drug trade. A pragmatic people, Afghans would rather know who the United States’ favorite candidate is and support him than vote for Karzai and then watch the United States resurrect local power-holders in an attempt to counterbalance a reelected Karzai's weak and corrupt administration. But rightly or wrongly, the Obama administration is feigning neutrality.

The mood on the ground was best summed up by a friend and fellow Afghan who announced on his Facebook page, "No need to wait for election results. Karzai has already elected himself."

This article was published originally in The Guardian.

The views expressed above are those of the author and are not necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.

Date Posted: 6/30/2009