Braving Taliban Threats, Afghans Head to the Polls
Amid gloomy predictions of intimidation, violence and corruption, on Thursday (Aug. 20) Afghanistan will hold its second election for president.
Five years ago, in its first “free and universal” elections, predictions were equally pessimistic: That there would be no clear victor, that many regions would boycott the vote, that women wouldn’t dare to vote, that violence would intimidate voters.
The doomsayers (who called themselves realists) were wrong five years ago. I was fortunate enough to be in Kabul for the elections, and while hardly Jeffersonian in nature, the results confounded the Jeremiahs who predicted the worst.
Hamid Karzai was a clear winner throughout the country. Violent incidents were notably low, Taliban intimidation tended to provoke Afghans to defy provocateurs and turn out, some 42% of eligible women voted (instead of the anticipated 10%).
Enthusiasm was at a high. “Now that we’ve had a free election, we’ll never go back,” was a common sentiment. Even burqa-shrouded women, who vote separately from males, chatted shyly with foreign journalists and rejected Taliban orthodoxy that women shut up.
It was a hopeful time, albeit temporary, and a cheerful refutation of the conventional wisdom of the moment, that democracy was too alien a concept to take root in Afghanistan.
None of this means that tomorrow’s election will echo the 2004 vote. In fact, in the intervening years, Taliban incursions have increased; corruption, which is endemic in the region, has spread; areas that had been relatively quiet, have become more dangerous.
As threats have increased, so have security measures.
The Afghan National Army (ANA) is now a more viable entity, even if the police are not at the same proficiency and reliability. With the American “surge” in combat troops, security for the election is more widespread.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces, has apparently suspended combat operations during the election, supposedly not to exacerbate the situation – puzzling, but that’s the thinking.
Karzai is not very popular -- among Afghans or his NATO protectors. Although observers are cautiously suggesting he might not be reelected, or win a majority, odds are he will win. Corruption is hardly an impediment in Afghanistan.
Pessimists who say Afghanistan is a “failed state” of warlords and opium dealers, neglect to note that Afghanistan has always been this way. It once had a king, who was tolerated as long as he didn’t interfere with the warlords. Afghanistan is, after all, Afghanistan and has its own unique personality.
Of over 40 candidates originally contesting Karzai’s job, at least 10 have already dropped out – some through intimidation, some through bribes, some from common sense. Who knows? This is Afghanistan, remember.
President Barack Obama warns that the “insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight.”
True, but isn’t that what former President George Bush said about both the war on terror and Iraq?
Afghanistan “will not be quick or easy,” says Obama, now that he’s president, which is exactly what Bush said when he was president.
As for Thursday's Afghanistan election, already there have been more suicide bomb attacks in Kabul than in the past.
Whether these will affect the vote, remains to be seen. But Afghans aren’t easily intimidated, and broadly speaking, most do not want a return of the Taliban controlling their lives. Period. We shall see...