Monitoring the 2009 Afghan Elections

On August 20th, 2009 Afghanistan held presidential and provincial council elections. There were 41 presidential and over 3,300 provincial council candidates. Unlike the previous elections in 2004 and 2005 which were conducted under United Nations auspices, the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) ran the 2009 contest with the UN in an advisory role. The elections took place against a backdrop of deteriorating security, intensifying insurgency and the growing disillusionment of the Afghan public with their government and the US and NATO/ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces.

The Obama administration viewed the elections success as crucial in light of its new Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy. The administration saw strengthening Afghan state institutions, facilitating delivery of basic services to the Afghan population, and ensuring the rule of law as essential to turning around what increasingly seemed like a war the US was losing. A newly elected government, seen as legitimate by the Afghan people, was a key to the implementation of this new policy. Thus, President Obama described the election, as the most important event of the year in Afghanistan. As the elections approached, however, few Afghans expressed confidence that the elections would be conducted honestly.

Among the first problems to emerge were those with the voter registry, including conflicting numbers of registered voters, with some provinces reporting many times higher numbers of registered voters than their estimated populations. Other provinces reported higher numbers of registered female than male voters in some of the most conservative areas of the country. Even with no reliable population data, such reports raised concerns about the validity and reliability of the registration rolls. Furthermore, there was much anecdotal evidence of registration cards being sold on street corners and of the supposedly indelible ink that was to mark voters fingers once they cast their ballots washing off with readily available household chemicals.

There were other problems as well. In the months before the elections President Karzai struck deals with many local strongmen and tribal leaders to ensure that they would deliver the vote for him. There were also well-grounded charges by opposition candidates regarding unequal access to the media. Ensuring the full participation of women in the process, whether as candidates, election workers or voters also proved difficult. As the head of the IEC in Nangarhar Province told me, finding adequate number of female workers to staff female polling stations was hard because of many families reluctance to allow women to work outside the home and because of the extremely high levels of illiteracy among Afghan women, more than 80 percent of whom are unable to read and write. Finally, the Taliban urged the public to boycott the vote, threatened to attack polling stations on election day, and to cut off fingers marked with indelible ink.

Although these problems during the pre-election period were widely recognized, immediately following the closing of the polls, much of the international community seemed to sigh with relief. Despite fears that the Taliban would succeed in disrupting the elections, the voting went ahead in most districts of the country. Shortly after the polling centers closed, President Obama declared that We had what appeared to be a successful election in Afghanistan.” The UN Security Council and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon likewise praised the elections. By mid- September the IEC was to officially certify the vote. If no presidential candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote, a second round of elections was to be held in early October to determine the winner.

The lack of security in many areas of the country and in particular in the south and the east had an impact on voter turnout and on the ability of independent groups to monitor the elections. In the end, about 32 percent of Afghans country-wide turned out to vote, probably a reflection of both voter fear and apathy. Security also affected the ability of observers to monitor the elections. In some of the more insecure areas, there were no domestic or international observers monitoring the vote. For instance, in Jalalabad where I observed the elections, there were domestic observer groups as well as international observers from various organizations. However, no one observed the vote in the eastern districts of Nangarhar province where the insurgency is the strongest. In other provinces, such as Paktika, Ghazni and Farah, international observers were unable to leave their compounds at all on election day because of the security situation.

Within days of the elections charges of irregularities and fraud mounted. In early September, the Electoral Complaints Commission (EEC) announced that more than 2,000 complaints had been filed of which more than 650 the Commission deemed serious enough that if valid would affect the final result. And although a few days later, the IEC announced preliminary results from 91.6% of polling stations that gave 54.1% of the vote to President Karzai and 28.3% to his main challengers, Dr. Abdallah Abdallah, the likelihood that the election results would soon be certified soon was slim, given that the EEC ordered audits and recount of votes at 2,500 polling stations. By mid-September, the European Union announced that it estimated that 1.5 million votes cast, nearly one-fourth of the total, were suspicious, with 1.1 million of those cast for President Karzai. At the same time, the UN mission to Afghanistan appeared increasingly divided about how to respond to the growing political crisis.

It is not clear how this political crisis will unfold or how it will be resolved. Even before the elections the government of President Karzai was losing the public's support. If in the end he is declared a winner in the first round, will this result be seen as legitimate by the Afghan public? If enough votes are tossed out as fraudulent and neither Karzai nor Abdullah have more than 50 percent of the vote thus forcing a second round, which given the harsh conditions of Afghan winters could be months away, what happens to the government in the interim? Will the possible political vacuum facilitate growing insurgency and increasing violence? A month after the elections there were few firm answers to these questions.

It is clear that the Obama administration is worried. As Admiral Michael Mullen acknowledged in his September confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the lack of legitimacy of the government and the pervasive government corruption is right now a “threat every bit as significant as the Taliban. Yet, the process of rooting out corruption and ensuring that the Afghan government is able to deliver basic services and security to the population is a long, not a short-term goal. Although the administration in September delivered the long-anticipated metrics to facilitate assessing policy progress in Afghanistan, it is too early to tell whether these will provide effective assessment tools or, if these tools will be effectively implemented. Also unclear is how long the Obama administration has to deliver on its promises in light of the dwindling public support for the war in Afghanistan.

Although much went wrong with the elections process in Afghanistan, some things went right. Many people chose to ignore the dangers and go out and vote. And, as I witnessed in Jalalabad, many were willing to serve as domestic observers and to put in long-hours at polling centers during the vote and the counting process. The actions of the EEC are also one of the bright spots in an otherwise difficult situation. As mandated, the Commission appears undeterred in its investigations of fraud and electoral irregularities. How these inquiries unfold and conclude, and how the outcome is perceived by the Afghan public will be crucial to the credibility of any future government.