Jerome Starkey in Kabul
As Afghanistan’s elections descend daily into chaos amid allegations of overwhelming fraud, police intimidation, ballot-stuffing and phantom polling stations, a growing number of diplomats are admitting that the fiasco was entirely predictable.
The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) ordered a partial recount and annulled thousands of ballots from 83 polling stations on Thursday, on top of 447 already ruled out, in a desperate attempt to claw back some semblance of credibility.
But if the election “fails”, with potentially bloody consequences, analysts in Kabul insist that the international community will only have itself the blame.
The warning signs were clear. Top British officials predicted that the election couldn’t happen, as late as last spring, insisting that if it did, it would only make things worse. Supporters of the second-placed candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, have warned of “Iran-style protests with Kalashnikovs” if people feel the vote has been stolen.
The real problems started much earlier, however. In 2004, when President Hamid Karzai won Afghanistan’s first democratic elections, the fraud was ignored.
“In 2004 the fraud didn’t make any difference, because Karzai was the only man in the race. People didn’t care,” said a senior Western official involved in the poll. “There was fraud, but it couldn’t change the result, so people didn’t care.”
In parliamentary elections the following year the fraud was ignored again. “In 2005 it wasn’t just small-scale, we saw the seeds of massive, organised fraud, especially in the southeast. What we are seeing today is a development of that,” Martine van Bijlert, co-director of the Afghan Analysts Network, said. “The problem is a basic lack of rule of law. In eight years we haven’t established a culture where you follow rules.”
The 2005 polls were a chance to strengthen Afghanistan’s nascent Independent Election Commission (IEC), but the West paid “lip service” to that goal.
“For each international there was supposed to be an Afghan learning the job. But the Afghan staff were doing administrative jobs. They didn’t do anything of substance,” a British official said.
“Then, the moment the election was over, funding for the IEC ground to a halt, and it was left to the dogs. The best people got other jobs and it was left to a rump of corrupt people to keep it alive.” (Read more)
