A TURNOUT in next Saturday’s parliamentary elections of between five million and seven million of Afghanistan’s 17.5 million registered voters “should be considered a success”. The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, is not setting the bar high but violence is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001. Military and civilian casualties are at record levels, the latter up 31 per cent in the first six months of the year. And the Taliban are promising an escalation for the election. Four candidates and at least 15 campaign workers and supporters have been killed in recent weeks. Unarmed government employees can no longer travel safely in a third of the country’s 368 districts – four years ago the insurgents were active in only four provinces; now in 33 of 34.
Some 2,447 candidates are contesting 249 seats in the lower house, the wolesi jirga, but the Independent Electoral Commission says more than a sixth of 6,835 polling centres will not open because security cannot be guaranteed. A campaign by the commission has also brought out a welcome, record 406 women candidates for the quarter of seats reserved for them. But many report repeated threats. In late August, five campaign workers of outspoken MP Fawzia Gilani, running for re-election in Herat, were kidnapped and killed.
Low turnout is also likely to be compounded by electoral fraud which saw one in three of eventual winner President Karzai’s votes in last year’s presidential election disqualified. Karzai was elected after a run-off was cancelled when his opponent pulled out. According to a US watchdog report, the electoral process – although improved – is still beset by many of the same problems such as the lack of a register of voters, insufficient candidate vetting and biased electoral organisations.
The election is seen as a key test of stability in Afghanistan as some 30,000 newly committed US troops deploy and ahead of President Obama’s strategic review of the increasingly unpopular war in December. But Karzai, a member of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, is increasingly isolated in political terms. His strategy of wooing the overwhelmingly Pashtun Taliban, although backed by the US and the international community, is regarded increasingly with outright hostility by leaders of the country’s other ethnic communities. Parliament has been flexing its muscles also and has recently blocked his choices for several cabinet positions. Whether a deeply flawed election can calm this troubled water is doubtful.