[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: When Elections Threaten Democracy

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When Elections Threaten Democracy

July 19, 2004
 By ANSAR RAHEL 



 

KABUL, Afghanistan — A caller on the BBC radio
service bragged about how he walked up to an election
registration center here and, without showing any
identification, received a voter card. He claimed to have
immediately shuttled to another registration site where he
was swiftly awarded another card, again without question. A
local newspaper article told of people selling their voter
registration cards - not card - to political parties for
$150 a piece. When I visit one of these sites, an old man
shoves me aside and asks me where the free food is. After a
confusing exchange, I decipher the miscommunication: he
believes his voter registration card is a coupon for free
wheat. "Voting," he asks, visibly irritated. "For what?
What's an election?" 

Around the corner, a group of local lawyers and judges
listens to international "experts" who have hastily called
a meeting at the Ministry of Justice to emphasize that they
will have to translate from the English into Dari and
Pashto, edit, submit for compliance with Islamic law,
submit for compliance with Afghan laws, provide policy
feedback and then get passed - through executive decree by
President Hamid Karzai - more than 20 new laws before the
presidential elections in October. 

These experts, earnestly wanting to help, are the first to
concede that "political pressures" have handcuffed them
into meeting this deadline for passing minor and
insignificant new laws like the commercial code (which
includes regulations on corporations, arbitration,
antitrust, contracts, partnerships and the like), bar
association laws, International Criminal Court
implementation and court organization rules. Looking
dumbfounded, a judge whispers, "Can we at least see a
translated copy of the laws first?" 

Around another corner, the Afghan Independent Reform
Commission is busy planning for the arrival of
Afghanistan's new Parliament, for which elections have now
been postponed until next spring. Part of their task: hire,
train, educate and lay the entire civil service foundation
for Parliament. This despite the complete absence of
supporting regulations for the elections law, which will
presumably give in detail the provincial- and
district-level voting rules. These regulations have yet to
be drafted, much less passed. 

Moreover, the territorial boundaries for the district-level
elections have yet to be ascertained. Having open hearings
in order to avoid gerrymandering is a mere afterthought at
this point. And the few months postponement in the
elections won't be much help - measuring voting boundaries
during winter is virtually impossible, as most of the
country becomes inaccessible. Thus, the delay only
increases already heightened suspicions against unchecked
presidential powers. 

One street over, a newly formed political party registers
voters. "So," asks one member, "is it or is it not against
the new Constitution to force potential voters into
submitting photo identification when signing their names in
order to register a political party?" (The Constitution
states that elections will be secret; thus the photo
requirement for registering presidential candidates has
become a disputed legal issue, to the point that the Afghan
government has decided to review the entire elections law.)
I, unfortunately, cannot provide an apposite legal
precedent, as there is none. More offending to the
principles of law, I can't even point to any public
discussion on the issue because the Constitution is so new
that no one's had the time to even start debating its most
important provisions. 

Legal precedent aside, the political party law and the new
Constitution do delineate, appropriately in my view,
certain prohibitions on political parties. For example,
they can not be "affiliated with military organizations" or
"receive funds from foreign sources." But the Office of
Political Party Registration has absolutely no legal
guidelines, or objective and definitive criteria, by which
to evaluate what constitutes military affiliation or
foreign financing. Only a few months remain before the
presidential elections, and no one really knows if any
party is violating the Constitution. 

Everywhere in Afghanistan, democratic principles that need
to incubate are being wholly ignored or bypassed. Thus
while most of the debate on whether to hold elections "on
time" has centered on security concerns, there are more
compelling reasons to move slowly: the lack of prerequisite
laws, a public that is completely uninformed about the
fundamental nature and responsibilities of democracy, the
absence of civic education, improper monitoring and
registration techniques, an utter lack of democratic
processes, and the fact that the government is ill equipped
to hold elections. Most Afghans don't even know what
democracy means. 

Elections are a process that builds credibility and
provides legitimacy to a government. It is utterly
unrealistic to expect Afghanistan to build the necessary
democratic pillars in a few months time when it took modern
democracies decades to do so. Certainly, elections should
not wait until the circumstances are perfect, but they
should be delayed at least until the country develops a
minimal capacity to handle them. The international
community should step up its aid over the coming few years
to help promote this undertaking; Afghanistan's
nation-building and democratic-development institutions
have very small staffs, but the people are very willing to
work. 

Imposing impractical deadlines on Afghans, particularly as
they may be seen as favoring a particular candidate,
imperils the democratic development that promotes good
citizenship in an organized society. Elections must be
delayed until the people can vote with some understanding
of and experience with their new laws and processes and
principles that, when understood, compel them to vote in
the first place. 

Ansar Rahel, a lawyer, returned to his native Afghanistan
from the United States in 2002. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/19/opinion/19RAHE.html?ex=1091256242&ei=1&en=c305224ec0dcb18e


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