Banyan: A gesture of defiance

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

IT IS not true to say that Afghanistan lacks good-news stories. It’s just that they are not the kind to generate headlines: 8m children at school, two-fifths of them girls, compared with 1m when the Taliban were in power; a tenfold increase in those Afghans with access to basic health care; some 20m who own mobile phones; and proliferating television channels, radio stations and newspapers. By contrast, the good-news story of the presidential election on April 5th was generating both headlines and surprise—and that is even before a result has been announced.

The expectation was for another flawed election like the one in 2009. Jeremiahs predicted that a combination of fraud, intimidation and violence would produce only a tainted, illegitimate government. That would give weary donors of international aid all the excuse they needed to stop signing the cheques keeping the country afloat. The only real winners would be the Taliban.

Yet in this election Afghans of all kinds rejected that account of their country. Despite the threat of Taliban reprisals (and rotten weather), over 7m Afghans, about 60% of those eligible, appear to have voted, half as many again as in 2009. Around 35% of those who cast a ballot were women. Burka-clad voters raising an ink-stained finger as they left the polling booths became a symbol of defiance. Contributing to the buzz on the day was the belief among voters that the election was genuinely open and the result no foregone conclusion. The candidates themselves campaigned on bread-and-butter and security issues and showed a commitment to the democratic process. President Hamid Karzai, who was accused of stealing the last election, appears to have stood back despite having a favoured candidate, a former foreign minister, Zalmai Rassoul. A vibrant and largely independent media reported with vigour and professionalism, despite recent deadly attacks against foreign or foreign-employed journalists.

The logistics of the election were almost a wholly Afghan affair. Most people who wanted to vote succeeded in doing so. From the outset, there was a quiet determination to expose and prevent fraud. Civil-society organisations deployed their members in areas that had shown serious irregularities in the past, while many journalists risked their own safety in the hunt for ballot-rigging scandals. Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, set up its own electoral complaints hotline. A steady stream of fraud allegations suggests that their efforts may only have had partial success, yet the independent Electoral Complaints Commission promises to investigate each one.

Critically, security across the country was tight. Only about 200 out of over 6,000 polling centres failed to open after threats from the Taliban. The interior minister, Umer Daudzai, contends that the Taliban had planned over 140 attacks. But there were no Taliban spectaculars, and voters were largely unharmed. Significantly, voter turnout in Kandahar province, the Taliban heartland, was far higher than anticipated, with not a single assault on a polling centre. In the 2009 election, over 30 bombings took place in Kandahar, and only a trickle of voters made it to the polls. Some suggest that the Taliban was split over how far it should target voters to undermine the election. But that should not detract from the achievement of the army and the police.

What comes next, though, matters greatly. The Independent Election Commission must build on its initial success by showing that vote-counting will take place in a transparent manner. It is a test, too, for the candidates. Preliminary first-round results will not all be announced until April 24th. As results start to dribble out and it emerges which ticket looks strongest, much jockeying for position will take place.

A second run-off ballot will be held on May 28th if, as seems likely, no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in the first round. Should Ashraf Ghani, an urbane former World Bank economist, be out in front with his thuggish running mate, Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord, then a deal between Abdullah Abdullah, another former foreign minister who ran last time, and Mr Rassoul is possible. It could be brokered by Mr Karzai, who will remain a powerful figure (with a chalet in the presidential palace grounds, no less). Mr Ghani and Mr Rassoul are Pushtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group, while Mr Abdullah is considered a Tajik. With much at stake in a two-horse race, the risk of serious fraud in the second round will be high. The chief incentive for the two candidates to restrain their followers from rigging the poll is that the victor will desperately need to be seen by as many Afghans as possible to have won more or less fairly.

It’s not over yet

Whoever wins, the new government’s first priority will be to conclude the bilateral security agreement with America (and a similar agreement with NATO) that Mr Karzai, to the dismay of most Afghans, has refused to sign. An agreement would pave the way for a contingent of about 12,000 American and NATO troops to stay after 2014 and provide the Afghan security forces with training, assistance and advice. That means, above all, plugging capability gaps in air support, intelligence, logistics and medical care. All three main candidates want the pact signed quickly, knowing how much flows from it: the morale and fighting efficiency of the army; the security needed to unlock $16 billion-worth of promised development aid; and the confidence in the future required to prevent money and talent from fleeing. However, with wheeler-dealing over ministerial posts and Ramadan starting on June 28th, it may be September before a security agreement is at last in place—going to the wire in terms of military planning.

That all lies ahead. But in this election ordinary Afghans have sent a message: to their own politicians that stability is more important than sectional interest; to the rest of the world that their country is worthy of continued support; and to the Taliban that its claims to represent Afghanistan are hollow.

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