Election problems in Afghanistan
So, the much heralded elections are underway - with problems galore. Apart from the obvious logistical problems of organization in a country with no infrastructure and mostly illiterate voters, and the fact that Taliban has threatened “global jihad” there seems to have been widespread and blatant fraud, leading to all of the other fifteen candidates withdrawing from the race
Jonathan Steeles with the Guardian writes in an interesting article that the election that Bush takes credit for is a mistake, and will obstruct peace and development in Afghanistan.
If they [elections] take place too early, they can be counterproductive and delay a society’s transition to a culture of genuine debate and competition. That was the lesson of the Balkans in the 1990s, in particular in Bosnia, where the rush to vote (pressed mainly by the Clinton administration) entrenched hardline nationalists in power. Last week’s local elections in Bosnia confirmed how hard it is to loosen the grip they acquired then.
[...]
It is a high-stakes game in which the US is working hard to prevent a government emerging that would ask it to go home. One early result is to expose how phoney the bombs-or-ballots alternative really is. Iraqis are going to get a lot of the former, whatever happens with the latter.
Stian
