• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, March 8, 2021
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Democracy at Risk

Marred by Violence, Afghan Democracy Put to the Test

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
10/18/18
in Democracy at Risk, Middle East
A Kabul resident at a voter registration center

Afghan employees of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) register a resident at a voter registration center in Kabul on April 14, 2018. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

At least 10 election candidates have been killed, thousands of polling centers closed, and many voters are likely to stay home due to the threat of militant attacks.

This is democracy, Afghanistan style.

Almost nine million people have registered to vote in the October 20 parliamentary election, which is more than three years late and only the third since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

But shambolic preparations, expectations of industrial-scale fraud, and escalating poll-related violence threaten to derail the election, which the international community is advising and largely funding.

A powerful Afghan police chief and a journalist were among at least three people killed on Thursday in the latest attack leading up to the elections when a gunman opened fire on a high-level security meeting attended by top U.S. commander General Scott Miller, officials said.

The Taliban said the attack had targeted Miller, who NATO said survived the shooting.

Alarm is growing as the beleaguered Independent Election Commission (IEC), which has been skewered for its poor handling of the process, struggles to distribute voting materials to more than 5,000 polling centers before they open at 7:00 am on Saturday.

They are supposed to include biometric voter verification devices that Afghan political leaders and officials only agreed to use a few weeks ago and have been made mandatory, despite being untested and not required by law.

Votes cast without the controversial machines will not be counted, IEC spokesman Sayed Hafizullah Hashimi told AFP, even though polling center workers have received little or no training in how to use them.

Observers are concerned the results could be thrown into turmoil if the devices are broken, lost or destroyed.

“We’re trying to make a terrible situation slightly less bad,” a Western diplomat told AFP, reflecting a sharp drop in expectations for a credible result, even by Afghan standards.

There also are fears the data could be manipulated before preliminary results are released on November 10.

“Using technology can help transparency but it can also create confusion if not used properly,” said Naeem Ayubzada, director of the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan.

‘Pseudo-Democracy’

More than 2,500 candidates are competing for 249 seats in the lower house, including doctors, mullahs, the sons of former warlords and at least one prisoner.

Campaigning has been marred by bloody violence. At least 10 candidates have been killed so far, including Abdul Jabar Qahraman who was blown up Wednesday by a bomb placed under his sofa in the southern province of Helmand.

The Taliban has warned candidates to withdraw from the ballot, which it has vowed to attack, and told education workers to stop their schools from being used as polling centers.

Senior Kandahar leadership including police chief Gen. Abdul Raziq are said to have been killed in the attack claimed by the Taliban https://t.co/KeRQyYNmhE

— The Defense Post (@DefensePost) October 18, 2018

The election is seen as a rehearsal for the presidential vote scheduled for April and an important milestone ahead of a UN meeting in Geneva in November where Afghanistan is under pressure to show progress on “democratic processes.”

Despite speculation the vote could be postponed again, Hashimi said it had to go ahead on time.

“It is already snowing in some provinces and the weather is getting colder,” Hashimi told AFP.

“If we delay the elections for a week, it means we won’t have them.”

Observers expect turnout on polling day to be far lower than the 8.9 million registered to vote in the first legislative election since 2010.

More than 2,000 voting centers have already been closed for security reasons, and the threat of more militant attacks are likely to persuade many voters to avoid the poll.

Some 54,000 members of Afghanistan’s already overstretched security forces will be deployed to protect the ballot.

To help boost numbers, Hashimi on Wednesday urged the media to focus on the elections, not violence.

There are widespread suspicions that a significant number of voter registrations were based on fake identification documents, which fraudsters hope to use to stuff ballot boxes.

Registrations in the eastern province of Paktia, for example, were “an implausible” 141 percent of the estimated eligible population, Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) said in a recent report.

“The fraud is already baked in,” a Western diplomat told AFP, adding Afghan officials may never know how many people actually voted.

That has further eroded confidence and deterred potential voters.

“Most of the people I have been talking to say they won’t go to vote, some even didn’t bother to register, and many said ‘we would love to vote if we knew the system would work’,” AAN co-director Thomas Ruttig told AFP.

“It’s not that Afghans are tired of democracy. They’re tired of this kind of pseudo-democracy.”

Afghan Ethnopolitics Jeopardizes US National Security

Share3Tweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

With Contributions by AFP

Related Posts

President Donald Trump in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House.
Opinion

Threatening Democracy: The Choice Between Progress and Extremism Has Never Been So Clear

by Peter Bloom
January 13, 2021
A masked man getting carried away by security
Democracy at Risk

Hong Kong Police Suddenly Arrest Three Pro-Democracy Ex-Lawmakers

by Deon Feng
November 18, 2020
The head of the Afghan government delegation, Abdullah Abdullah, addresses the opening session of peace talks with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar.
World

Afghan Violence Soars Despite Peace Talks: Watchdog

by Staff Writer
November 5, 2020
U.S. President Donald Trump chats with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017.
Opinion

Unlike Russia, the US Has an Opportunity to Ascend Back to Democracy

by Stephen J. Lyons
August 26, 2020
A demonstrator holds a "We want democracy' sign during a protest in Bangkok.
Democracy at Risk

Thai PM Warns of Increased Arrests as Pro-Democracy Protests Continue

by Josephine Walker
August 13, 2020
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul on July 9, 2018. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP.
Middle East

Afghan President to Push for Peace Talks with Taliban

by Jonah Fox
July 7, 2020
Next Post
Mauricio Macri

'Uber or Stealing:' Life in Argentina Under Austerity

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Supreme Court Overturns Entry Ban on US student

Recommended

An ambulance outside the United Nations office in Yemen's capital Sanaa, March 7, 2021.

At Least Eight Dead in Fire at Yemen Migrant Facility: IOM

March 8, 2021
British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

UK Calls on Iran to Release British-Iranian Woman After Sentence Ends

March 7, 2021
Pro-democracy protests in Thailand, August 2020.

Hundreds Protest Royal Defamation Laws in Thailand

March 6, 2021
Senegalese police intervening a protest in support of the arrested opposition leader Ousmane Sonko in Dakar.

Senegal Clashes Kill One After Opposition Leader Arrest

March 5, 2021
Malika Boumendjel, widow of Algerian lawyer Ali Boumendjel, speaks in a 2001 interview about her husband's death during his detention by the French army.

Algeria Welcomes France’s Admission It Killed Independence Figure

March 4, 2021
Jake Angeli speaks to a US Capitol Police officer.

Attempted US Capitol Coup a Security and Existential Crisis

March 3, 2021

Opinion

Jake Angeli speaks to a US Capitol Police officer.

Attempted US Capitol Coup a Security and Existential Crisis

March 3, 2021
What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

March 1, 2021
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meets with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in Khartoum, last August

Sudan’s Normalization With Israel Is a Win for Everyone

February 26, 2021
Stolpersteine in Greifswald, Germany.

I Can’t Mark Where My Grandfather Is Buried, but I Want to Mark Where He Lived

February 26, 2021
Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley

Trump’s Acquittal and Republican Senators: Not Setting the Bar Low Enough

February 22, 2021
Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

February 19, 2021
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post