JOIN USIn August this year another regional neighbour heads to the polls. And even as President Karzai filed his nomination setting aside any speculation regarding his bid for re-election, the setting of August as the date for polls has been challenged as unconstitutional by the opposition parties.
It is constitutionally required that elections are conducted within 60 days of the end of the presidential term and President Karzai’s ends on May 21, 2009. The date for election is August 20, 2009, 90 days later. The opposition’s demand to have an interim president during that time too has been rejected. Of course, the postponement of the presidential election is supported by NATO governments.
Adding to this are the nominations of men with notorious pasts as warlords and terrible human rights violations during the soviet jihad and the internecine civil war as his deputies that has raised concerns amongst democratic groups in Afghanistan. These are overtly opportunistic members of parliament who till recently were prominent members of the National United Front, the opposition coalition which dominates the Afghan parliament. They retain their own militia groups and are widely accused of corruption, trafficking in narcotics and other criminal activities.
Much in line with the previous elections where every candidate stood independently there are 44 presidential hopefuls, including two women, in the race for the presidential post.
The irony is that despite his own support as low as 15 per cent President Karzai still appears to have sealed the presidential election in his favour with the opposition to him, mainly expected to have come from the NUF, badly divided. Their candidate is Abdullah Abdullah, once the foreign minister in Karzai’s cabinet.
The Bonn Agreement of 2001 vetoed the participation of democratic political parties setting the tone for what was to follow. Since 2003 political parties have been prohibited from participating in elections so the new democratic parties cannot publicly campaign. Today the fundamental political division in Afghanistan is between those who want separation of religion and politics and the Islamists.
The truth is that everything from the constitution to the system of government and the electoral process were put in place to work around Karzai’s candidature in the first place and not the other way around. Afghanistan’s internal affairs have been part of Washington’s foreign policy for a very long time now.
It is common knowledge that the decision to fund the mujahideen was taken in the spring of 1979, months before the actual Soviet invasion. What is lesser known perhaps is that the CIA had already been funding militant Islamist movements in the 1970s to counter communism.
As did the Soviet invasion, 9/11 also provided the excuse for the Bush administration to replace the increasingly intractable Taliban regime with a more compliant, dependent government — one that was favourable to the American government’s policy objectives. A one party, presidential system of government with a strong, centralised concentration of power similar to the one in 1977 under Daoud is what essentially served their end games.
Afghan case
The argument frequently used for the Afghan case is that democracy is not a favourable option in a country where illiteracy is extremely high and militant Islamists have a strong presence amidst a predominantly Muslim patriarchal set-up. The frequent incarceration of journalists and media persons points to the fact that it is only those in power who have blocked any real attempts at building democratic institutions.
And yet, quite ironically, upon a country still struggling with the nuances of democracy have been thrust neoliberal policies like the free market, government deregulation and privatisation of all state-owned enterprises meaning that foreign or US-financed organisations now control the country’s natural resources.
And in doing so Afghanistan has had to skip several learning steps towards a self reliant economy at a time when it jostles with the parallel economy of the illegal narcotics trade.
Restoring faith in the democratic process, its institutions and those at the helm of affairs is the key to any change. Will August 2009 be that change remains to be seen.