SAN-Feature Service

October 10,2004

The Afghan election fiasco:
Tale of the “indelible” ink
By Dr. A.H. Jaffor Ullah

October 9, 2004, will go down in the history of Afghanistan as a Red Letter Day because an estimated 10.5 million who registered to vote in this nation’s first ever direct election to elect the president of this war-torn nation.  Naturally, all eyes were on Afghanistan on this day.

To mark the importance of the first presidential election both President Bush and VP Cheney have mentioned about it in the three nationally televised debates, which took place in the past ten days.  Mr. Bush thinks it is his administration’s jewel in the crown kind of trophy.  He opined that his policy and action have resulted in the democratization of Afghanistan and soon Iraqis will vote to install their first government.  Nobody could argue with Mr. Bush on this; however, is the election in Afghanistan free of violence and impropriety?   

At the campus of George Washington University in St. Louis, candidate Bush proudly proclaimed in the televised debate with candidate Kerry that as they argue with each other, about 10 million Afghans who registered to vote will elect their president in a adult suffrage.  However, Mr. Bush had no idea what was happening allover Afghanistan on that day. 

Next morning (October 9, 2004) in a National Public Radio (NPR) Weekend news aired at 7:00 a.m.  (Central Standard Time)  I learned that most Afghan candidates in the much-touted presidential election have withdrawn their names.  The candidates complained that the ink that will be used to color the thumb of the voters as a sign for someone who cast their vote is not indelible.  Thus, the candidates fear that any person should be able to vote more than once.  There is a reason for concern.  And I pointed it out in my last writing on Afghan election.  Many a NGO had complained that the voter’s list contain multiple entries of one person.  Thus, they opined that the number of voters eligible to vote has been inflated.  We all thought this was done to come up with round and fat number such as “10 million” so that President Bush and VP Cheney could brag about it in the televised debates, which they both did.  However, there are more to the story of inflated voters’ list than meet the eyes.

The NPR report was an eye-opener for many of the listeners including this scribe.  The center of the storm concerning Afghan presidential election has to deal with the ink the election authorities have approved for use.  Once a voter cast his or her election, the thumb will have a mark with indelible ink.  The other presidential candidates excepting Hameed Karzai, the one chosen by the Bush Administration, have complained that the ink for coloring thumb is not indelible.  Thus, it opens the window for multiple voting.

From another NPR radio news program, this scribe learned that some NGOs have complained about multiple enlisting of a single woman in the voters’ list.  In Afghanistan, the tradition has it that a woman wears burqua or modesty veil when she ventures to outside world.  Therefore, it will be too easy for a woman to cast votes more than once.  Thus, the decision by the election authorities to use washable ink to mark the thumb makes sense in the light of an inflated number of voters in the list.  For this reason alone, most candidates have complained about postponing the election.  Whether the authorities will agree to this or not is a different matter.

The Americans have picked up Hameed Karzai in June 2002 to head the beleaguered nation of Afghanistan in the wake of the removal of Mullah Omar’s Taliban government.  Afghanistan is full of warlords; this is the way the divided provinces with different ethnic people are being administered by regional warlords.  Mr. Hameed Karzai comes from a warlord family from the southern Pashtun speaking province that borders Pakistan.  The rival group assassinated Mr. Karzai’s father, who was also a formidable warlord.  President Bush picked Hameed Karzai amongst the warlords to run Afghanistan in post-Taliban days.  This made other warlords very unhappy.  Just in the last one-year we have read news about a few warlords gone unruly and revolting against the central authorities.  Americans initially had approved giving regional authorities to many warlords but as a sign consolidation of power by the Kabul Administration headed by Karzai, some warlords who expressed an interest to run side-by-side with Karzai in the lection were bumped out of the office.  A case in point is the ouster of Ismail Khan in the western province of Herat.  From these unforeseen developments, it seems too clear that Hameed Karzai has become power hungry and he wanted to be in power by any means.  In addition, he is the preferred candidate in the eyes of the Bush Administration.  In a country where power means everything, it makes sense that Karzai will have stiff competition.  Rather than having a fair and square election, Karzai like other dictators have chosen the easier path.  No wonder that other presidential candidates have decided to boycott the election.

Altogether there were 18 candidates competing in the election for the president.  Earlier 2 candidates withdrew their names.  Out of 16 candidates still listed in the ballot, 15 candidates have urged the election body to halt the election, which practically placed Hameed Karzai as the single candidate.  Afghan election body says it will not halt the vote.  Therefore, the U.S.-backed candidate, Hameed Karzai will be the only candidate running in this election.  Now would someone call this a free and fair election?  Now that all the other candidates have withdrawn their names from the ballot, can someone say for sure that Hameed Karzai has won the election fair and square?

As a mark of solidarity, one presidential contender, Abdul Satar Serat said, “Today's election is not a legitimate election.  We are not a part of today's election.”  Mr. Serat had made the remark after a meeting of most of the 15 candidates and representatives of the others.  The spokesperson for this group of 15 candidates had accused that the election authorities are favoring the U.S. backed candidate, President Hameed Karzai. 

The following is a partial list of presidential contenders in Afghanistan; the list was culled from the Internet:  1.  Hamid Karzai, elected by a tribal grand council after the fall of the Taliban, Karzai has become an international celebrity.  Likely to pick up votes among fellow ethnic Pashtuns, Karzai may also win over reform-minded Afghans; 2. Yunus Qanooni, Karzai's former education minister was last to join the race but has emerged as his most powerful rival.  Qanooni has the support of the defense minister and the foreign minister, forming a powerful troika of former anti-Taliban leaders bidding for the loyalty of fellow ethnic Tajiks; 3. Mohammed Mohaqeq, another former minister who was also an anti-Taliban militia commander, but from the long-suffering Hazara minority; 3. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former communist and wily player in his country's brutal civil wars, this archetypal Afghan warlord is widely distrusted, particularly by Pashtuns; 4. Ms. Massooda Jalal, an outspoken former U.N. worker who challenged Karzai for the interim leadership in 2002, Jalal is the only female candidate; 5. Abdul Latif Pedram, a Tajik former exile who fell foul of communist, mujahideen and Taliban governments; 6. Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a vice president in the early 1990s, Ahmadzai was a leader of a party with links to the Arab volunteers who joined Afghanistan's anti-Soviet resistance and later al-Qaida; 7. Abdul Hafiz Mansoor. An intellectual, Mansoor has emerged as a pole of independent dissent against Karzai, accusing him of trying to install an elected dictatorship; 8. Abdul Satar Sirat, a refined former aide to Afghanistan's last king, Sirat could tap nostalgia for the monarchy, whose reign coincided with the last period of peace before it was swept away by a 1973 coup.

It is too early to say what lies ahead as far as the first ever-presidential election in Afghanistan is concerned.  Will the election result in which there was only one candidate be validated by president Bush and the rest of the leaders of western democracies?  Stay tuned.