By Rasul Bakhsh Rais
Elections are important markers of political progress and no matter what the results, with this election, Afghanistan will take one step further towards recovery from the chaos that has marked its recent history
It is a mark of progress itself that Afghanistan, countering an insurgency, is holding its second presidential elections. It is also a sign of some political progress that Afghanistan has a constitution, an elected parliament and elected provincial councils. These are the fundamental institutions that provide critical infrastructure for the development of the state and rooting it properly in society.
Afghanistan has never been a robust state or a democracy in any meaningful sense or for long enough duration. This fresh experiment in state and nation-building is part of an international effort to secure Afghanistan from local insurgent groups like the Taliban and from their foreign collaborators, i.e. Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups.
There are two basic principles that guide these fresh endeavours to recreate and restructure Afghanistan as a viable and effective state. First is the hardware of the state: physical infrastructure, roads, communications, public works, schools, colleges and health centres. That is necessary to firm up statehood through the delivery of security and other social goods to the citizens.
There is good progress on many counts in different sectors that would give strength to the state and its capacity to govern. But the result of whatever has been invested so far are patch at best and their impact on the ground varies from one region to an other. Relatively peaceful regions have done better than the troubled zones for obvious regions.
The second principles that guides the international coalition in rebuilding Afghanistan is establishing legitimate basis of political authority. For the first few years, the interim Afghan government was endorsed by the Bonn Conference and had sanction of the United Nations and the great powers. That was necessary to start the political process, which included the framing and adoption of a new constitution.
The next stage was holding presidential, parliamentary and provincial council elections. Under very difficult circumstances, Afghanistan and its international partners have accomplished a gigantic task in providing a popular support base for the legislature and the presidency.
One may question the quality of democracy or raise doubts about participation of ordinary Afghans in public affairs, but these questions are not as important in the formative stage, when seeds of democratic life are being sown through the introduction of ideas and institutions that would sustain democracy. What is important in countries like Afghanistan is the very first act of creating some space for democracy and seeking its social acceptance.
As democracy among other things is built around self-interest, it motivates individuals to participate as individuals or as members of groups to elect candidates to public office whom they believe would serve their interests better. It also brings different communities, members of diverse social groups and people belonging to different ethnicities together, as building coalitions becomes necessary to achieve common objectives.
Therefore, the second presidential elections are part of a greater political project of building Afghanistan as an effective state and unified nation. It is truly an international effort, but which is very much about Afghans and their country.
It is also a sign of progress that Afghan authorities and the powers intensely involved in Afghanistan’s rebuilding are not deterred by the threat from the Taliban to disrupt the electoral exercise. There is no other legitimate exercise to confer political legitimacy than elections, because they mean political and social support.
In difficult and uncertain times like these, continuity of democracy and more of it would help bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. The elections will also help build a support base for the presidency.
But questions remain about the conditions under which the presidential elections are being held and the results they are likely to produce.
There appears to be a great deal of interest among the candidates that have fielded themselves: there are more than forty candidates contesting the elections, including two women. The candidates have no political parties as none exist in this phase of Afghan democracy. Their identities and support bases are essentially ethnic and not political or ideological.
But learning from the first presidential elections in which we witnessed essentially ethnic voting for candidates, this time around the vice-presidential candidates represent another significant community in the case of the three front-runners — Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani. Over time, we will see more of mixed ethnic tickets.
The recent public opinion polls conducted by the International Republican Institute place Hamid Karzai far ahead of his rival candidates, but short of support for winning the election in the first round. The Afghan constitution requires that the winning candidate must secure more than fifty percent of the votes cast on the polling day.
The big question is will Hamid Karzai be elected in the first round or will the other candidates fragment the vote and force run-off elections a few months later. There is greater probability of a fragmented vote but one cannot be sure of how people will vote in a country like Afghanistan, still in the primary phase of democratic governance.
People are generally not happy with the performance of the Karzai government but they seem equally sceptical about the ability of his rivals to perform better. This sentiment may get a second term for Karzai, but mainly because of the lack of a viable alternative.
We may see an interesting situation develop if Karzai fails to win fifty plus one in the first round. Much will depend on the collective vote bank of the two trailing candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani. Will they team up to contest against front-runner Karzai? No doubt failure in the first round would weaken Karzai politically and encourage his rivals to forge greater unity in the run-off, perhaps to defeat him.
There are two more questions that would overshadow the presidential elections on August 20. The first is the deteriorating climate of security on account of the surge in fighting and the greater capacity of the Taliban to disrupt activities. There is also a possibility that the Taliban allow elections to take place as they did last time to facilitate the election of Karzai, a fellow Pashtun.
Voter turnout is another issue that will dominate discussion, especially regarding the credibility of the elections. This will be more important than who wins the election. Low turnout will weaken the government of whosoever gets to form it and further undermine its effort to extend its writ beyond cities.
Elections are important markers of political progress and no matter what the results, with this election, Afghanistan will take one step further towards recovery from the chaos that has marked its recent history.
Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at
rasul@lums.edu.pk
Afghanistan’s step forward
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