Afghan election stalemate: All roads lead to illegitimacy

Afghans are wondering which outcome of the electoral crisis will yield the lesser of two evils. Should the new Wolesi jirga be seated considering it’s a product of fraud-ridden elections in which over one million votes were thrown out? Or, should Afghan President Hamid Karzai be allowed to unconstitutionally postpone the new lower house’s start because it will be detrimental to his political agenda?

UN tries to save ‘democracy’

The UN and the U.S. expressed “deep concern” that Karzai, who is now seen by many of his Western sponsors as increasingly autocratic, tried to delay the start of parliament by at least a month. Sunday night UN envoy Staffan de Mistura scrambled to ensure a deal didn’t collapse between Karzai and the incoming lawmakers, saying:

"Afghanistan's peaceful future lies in the building up of robust democratic institutions based on the rule of law and clear respect for the separation of powers.”

The representative-elects take issue with Karzai’s illegal establishment of a special court designed to unseat his opponents. Legislators on Saturday thought they had struck a deal with the President and would begin the new session on Wednesday. Yet, Karzai planned to meet with some of the 2,500 losing candidates on Monday, so it is unclear where the President now stands.

Selecting the new parliament’s speaker will be the next controversy. Karzai is backing Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, an Islamist warlord who has been accused of gross human rights violations, which will irk the U.S.

"He (Karzai) is trying to punish the international community," said one lawmaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared political reprisal. "Karzai will pressure MPs (members of parliament) to vote for Sayyaf."

Karzai has put himself in a political no-win situation. For years he has alienated his own ethnic bloc, the Pashtuns, who perceive him as selling out to the minority groups of the Northern Alliance. But the northern minorities have turned against Karzai because of his desire to negotiate a power-sharing deal with the Taliban – the mortal enemy of the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Now, Karzai is trying to win the favor of the Pashtuns again, who were horribly underrepresented in this latest electoral fiasco.

Alienating the Pashtuns

It is almost impossible to hold an election in a warzone and the 2010 parliamentary election was no exception, as less than 40% of registered voters turned out to cast a ballot. 413 lower-house candidates, including 62 sitting parliamentarians, were accused of fraud by the UN-backed electoral commission while 1.5 million votes were thrown out.

Not to mention, at least 17 people were killed on election day while poor security forced a fifth of polling stations to close down in some areas.

Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group that makes up well over 40% of the population, were impacted the most, especially in southern Afghanistan in Taliban strongholds. Most Pashtuns in these areas didn’t vote in fear of retaliation – showing up to the polls was tantamount to suicide.

Ghazni province, heavily populated by Pashtuns, serves as a microcosm of the dilemma. The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss points out that the Hazaras, a Shiite minority, swept all eleven seats in the province while Pashtuns got none. In the district of Andar, out of the 70,000 Pashtuns registered, only three cast votes. Pashtun disenfranchisement is feeding the Taliban insurgency. Disqualified Ghazni politician Daoud Sultanzai said:

"We are trying to calm our followers, but if they don't get justice many of them will turn to violence. It is not a question of joining the Taliban. Our followers are the majority. The Taliban will join them."

System rigged against the people

The Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) employed by Afghanistan is a system guaranteed to ensure money and power dominates the process, says Jean MacKenzie of The Global Post. According to SNTV, each candidate runs as an independent rather than as a representative of a party. In Kabul, 650 candidates competed for 33 seats, for example, as bewildered voters lacked sufficient information to make optimal decisions; hence, the day was won by those most adept at literally buying votes.

Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network believes the only way to make elections work in Afghanistan is to scrap the system which has done extensive damage to the democracy movement. He suggests that democratically minded Afghans should rally to push for genuine electoral reform. Ruttig writes:

This would need to look beyond personal ambition and anger, to the broader national interest. Those protesting in the streets are much too angry for this now, but hopefully this will subside after some time.

Karzai’s dubious motives

Many Afghans view the Karzai government’s fervor to identify fraud as more than a bit self-serving. If there is such sensitivity to electoral irregularities, they say, then why were the tainted 2009 presidential elections allowed to stand?

“If there is a special court to adjudicate electoral fraud, then the first person they summon should be President Karzai, for perpetrating fraud in last year’s presidential elections,” said Ahmad Behzad, a successful parliamentary candidate from Heraat province. “Why did the judiciary not react then? More than 1.5 million votes in the presidential elections were found to be fraudulent.”
 

A potential solution

It is obvious that Western-style democratic elections are futile amid the instability of an ongoing war, as voters are disenfranchised by fear of violent reprisals and unprecedented levels of corruption.

Hence, the Afghans must travel abroad and rely on a traditional cultural tool that has been successful for centuries – the Loya Jirga – a sacred gathering of tribal elders and leaders in times of national crisis. A series of All-Afghan Jirgas must be held in neutral countries to select a new leadership and government as outlined in a white paper entitled Afghanistan National Reconciliation.