Dreams of Democracy

Millions of Afghans head to the polls on September 18, hoping to leave behind years of warfare but also fearful of what their votes may produce for the future.

At stake are seats in the lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, and the provincial councils which will run local affairs and also help shape the legislature’s upper house, the Meshrano Jirga.

Fifty-five thousand police and 28,000 Afghan soldiers, backed by an international force of more than 10,000 troops, have been deployed to provide security against possible attacks by the Taleban, whose fighters are still battling a 20,000-strong US-led Coalition force.

While the massive security arrangements seem to be inspiring confidence, many voters appear to be concerned about the eventual outcome of the vote.

"If I and others don't vote for the good candidates, parliament will be full of criminals and killers," said 28-year-old Farhad in his shop at Kabul's Pashtunistan intersection, adding that he would not vote for a fundamentalist.

It was a view frequently repeated by others who spoke out vehemently against those candidates with "blood-stained hands".

Abdul Shukur, 30, from Wardak province, summed up such concerns succinctly, "Our nation is torn by war, and those who had their swords drawn yesterday should today be stopped from getting into parliament."

Those elected to parliament must focus on benefiting the whole nation, and not be swayed by ethnic or regional interests, he added.

When the polls open at 6 am on September 18, the estimated 12.5 million electorate - many of them illiterate - will have a chance to vote at polling stations across the country, some of them so isolated that donkeys and camels had to be used to bring in the election materials. Others will make their way to mosques and schools in towns and villages that have been turned into polling stations for the day. The 26,000 stations will be open until 4 pm.

Each person will cast two votes, one for a parliamentary candidate and one for the provincial council.

In the capital, Kabul, voting will be a formidable exercise. Nearly 400 candidates are standing for the 33 parliamentary seats allocated to Kabul, which has meant production of a ballot booklet carrying the photograph, symbol and number of each would-be politician. Each voter will have to search through this list for his or her chosen candidate.

Across the country’s 34 provinces, there is widespread distrust of many of the 3,000 candidates contesting the 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga.

The candidates themselves are a mixed bunch. Among them are former warlords and lower-level commanders whose militias destroyed much of Kabul and caused thousands of deaths between 1992 and 1996 in the internecine conflict between rival mujahedin groups that followed the ousting of the communist government.

They also include a former Taleban official responsible for the “promotion of virtue and prohibition of vice”, and a woman who was spurred to contest a seat by the memory of being whipped by the same official's religious police in a Kabul street.

More than 300 women are vying to enter parliament, where a minimum of 68 seats are reserved for them.

Political analyst Bashir Bezhan sees little chance of a truly representative parliament emerging. "Just as the presidential election was conducted according to the will of a few individuals, the parliamentary ones will be the same, and these people will get the parliament they want," he said

Bezhan and some other analysts worry that the vote will be affected by external influences. The international community has reportedly invested over 150 million US dollars to finance the election.

"The Americans will do whatever it takes to get their own platform implemented and obtain their chosen parliament," he said, without elaborating on what he saw as Washington's aim.

Analyst Qasim Akhgar also doubts that the election will produce true representatives of the Afghan people, and fears that it will instead be dominated by the rich and powerful.

"Foreigners are directly involved in the parliament because a huge amount has been spent and it is obvious the Afghan government does not have this kind of money. And of course those who subsidise this process will have their goals fulfilled in this parliament," he said.

Akhgar added that independent candidates would have no chance of getting elected because they did not have the necessary backing. "This parliament won't be an effective one," he concluded.

Vetting was supposed to have eliminated any candidate with current links to armed groups, found guilty of war crimes, or still hanging on to a government post. But the process has been widely viewed as being ineffective.

Just five days before Sunday's poll, three supporters of a parliamentary candidate were wounded when gunmen attacked the convoy in which he was travelling in the northern Takhar province. According to press reports, the candidate, a former militia commander, accused his rivals of carrying out the attack.

Two high-profile parliamentary candidates, Mohammad Younus Qanuni and Salam Rakiti, traded accusations of mass murder and human rights abuses in a televised programme, each saying the other should be struck off the ballot list.

Neither candidate has been charged with war crimes or other human rights abuses, one of the criteria for disqualification.

There is confusion over whether the Taleban, ousted by US forces in 2001, intends to try to disrupt the poll on election day. The group’s spokesman, Lutfullah Hakimi, has said the Taleban will not attack voting stations because it does not want to be responsible for injuring innocent people.

But his statement comes against a background of increased violence in which the Islamic movement has been blamed for the killing of at least six candidates and five election workers.

Hakimi dismisses the election as a sideshow in the Taleban’s war, which he says will go on beyond the ballot box until foreign forces and the government they support are driven out.

Officers with the US and Afghan militaries, and those of the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, say they are ready for any eventuality and are confident they can ensure the elections will not be disrupted, a view shared by many of the capital’s residents.

The owner of a Kabul shop, who asked not to be named, said, "Although the opposition group [Taleban] may try their best to disrupt the process, I don't think they will succeed."

He believed everyone should vote "because this election is seen as a step towards real democracy and it means we will have a body with the power and authority to be involved in government affairs".

His optimism was shared by 34-year-old Akhtar Mohammad, who owns a shop at the Nader Pashtun intersection. Once parliament is elected, he believes many problems will be solved. "I'll vote for a person who is honest, competent, Muslim and whose hands are not stained with people's blood," he said.

Aziz Ahmad, a lecturer at the law faculty of Kabul University, was optimistic about the composition of the new national assembly. "I think Afghans know who they should vote for," he said.

But some are not so confident about the elections. A shoeshine man waiting on the pavement for customers told IWPR he thought parliament was "a waste of time and money".

"Away with you, brother! What’s parliament and what does it do?” he said aggressively. “Find another person to talk to. What benefit did we get from voting for Karzai?"