Observing Afghanistan's 2010 Wolesi Jirga Elections

IMGXYZ2751IMGZYXWhile many experts argue that building democratic institutions and processes strengthens prospects for long-term stability in Afghanistan, establishing a democracy is a challenge in a country plagued by violence and corruption. Caroline Wadhams from the Center for American Progress, T. Kumar from Amnesty International, and Carnegie’s Matthew Rojansky observed the September elections for the Afghan lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, with Democracy International’s 2010 Afghanistan Election Observation Mission. They discussed their observations from the field and assessed the implications of the elections for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

Observations on the Ground

Significant local efforts were made to foster free and fair elections, despite a number of structural impediments to full transparency, representation, and success, Rojansky said.

• Voter Identification Cards: In a country with an estimated 12 to 13 million voting-age citizens, 17.5 million voter ID cards were issued. This discrepancy results from multiple issues, including counterfeit cards, corrupt practices, and systemic mistakes. Furthermore, voter ID cards for women did not include their photos, making it easier to commit voter fraud.


• Single Nontransferable Votes: Another impediment to accurate representation was the single nontransferable vote system. In this system, each voter in a region chooses one candidate, although each region is allotted several seats and has a large number of candidates on the ballot. The first regional seat is awarded to the candidate with the most votes and subsequent seats are given to candidates with the next highest number of votes until the province reaches its number of allotted representatives. This leads to winning candidates in provinces with millions of people receiving just tens of thousands of votes and having only a slim margin of victory over candidates who did not receive a seat, Rojansky noted.


• The Candidates: 68 out of 249 seats were reserved for women, and women won 69 seats in the parliament. However, for the most part candidates needed to either be wealthy themselves or backed by wealthy patrons to afford the cost of a winning campaign. This limited the participation of minority and female candidates. In one province a well-known women’s rights activist had to be secretly endorsed by a warlord to secure the capital to run, Kumar added.


• Dedicated Afghans: Despite these barriers, Rojansky observed, many Afghans on the ground made concerted efforts to ensure fair and accurate elections, including providing posters that explained the voting process to both the literate and illiterate. Workers at one polling station protected ballots from a Taliban attack, personally driving them to the central headquarters so the votes could be counted.

The Insurgent Dilemma

Despite the recent surge in American forces, security concerns and the influence of the Taliban still played a large role in the parliamentary election.

• Security Situation: Kumar observed that the security situation was noticeably bad, especially in rural areas. Monitoring teams only an hour-and-a-half outside of Kabul were forced to return to the capital due to safety concerns. This lack of security helps to explain why only 40 percent of Afghans voted.


• Little Improvement in Voting: In the presidential election one year ago, almost 40 percent of voters cast their ballots and 25 percent of votes were rejected, the same percentages as in September’s parliamentary election. While the technical proficiency of Afghanistan’s voting system improved and in theory the voting process looks good, a combination of factors on the ground caused the percentage of voters and the percentage of rejected votes to remain stagnant, Kumar said. He argued that there should have been an even greater motivation for voters to come to the polls for the recent parliamentary election because more candidates were on the ballot, and local or family ties to candidates would entice voters to turn out.


• The Impact of the Taliban: Before the election, the Taliban publicly threatened to attack citizens who voted. These threats depressed voter turnout, especially in Pashtun areas. Furthermore, Kumar said, it is unclear what percentage of potential voters did not vote because they identified with the Taliban.

Implications for U.S. Strategy

It remains to be seen whether the September election will be perceived as a step toward creating a stable, democratic Afghanistan or another indication of the failure to create a secure and sustainable peace, the panelists agreed.

• Afghan Perceptions: Wadhams noted that Afghan perceptions of the elections will depend on how the electoral complaints commission handles the 4,000-5,000 complaints that have already been filed, as well as the announcement of the victors.


• Mixed Results: The problems faced in the election are already negatively affecting the American public’s perception of the war. Wadhams argued that many Americans see the September elections in Afghanistan as another fraudulent election in a country that is ultimately a lost cause. Even if Afghanistan achieved more transparency and technical expertise in this election than in previous ones, it is still being viewed negatively in the international media, which strongly affects the U.S. commitment to the war.


• The (Un)importance of Parliament: Parliament is not a primary driver in Afghan politics, Wadhams observed, and the elections are ultimately both important for the nation’s democratic development and peripheral. Nobody in the NATO forces or the Afghan government is talking about the elections, and parliament will remain a weak body regardless of who wins, due to the lack of voting blocs or party system, and its weak authority in a presidential system supported by influential foreign funders such as the United States.