Afghanistan Election Watch: Photos and Final Thoughts

Talking to a group of Kuchi about the Wolesi Jirga elections

Going to National Democratic Institute’s “Preliminary Observations and Analysis of Afghanistan’s Parliamentary Elections” event last Friday helped me reflect on my own experiences as an election observer there. For example, I couldn’t help but agree with Peter Manikas, Director of NDI’s Asia programs, when he stated that, “This was really 34 elections.” Weeks after the election I’m still learning and reading about things that allegedly happened in places like Wardak and Ghor that seem to contrast sharply with what our teams saw in Panjshir. Continue reading »

The system

If Afghanistan created Karzai rather than the other way around, then getting rid of the man will not solve the problem.

Afghanistan Election Watch pt. II: Actual Results May Vary

It was easy to be impressed with some of the things we witnessed in Panjshir Province on Election Day last week. After waking up at 4am, driving to a region beyond the reach of the only paved road around, and then hiking 30 minutes into the mountains, we arrived at our first polling center (comprised of one station each for men and women). My male colleague and out male interpreter were not permitted to enter the women’s station, so I walked alone into the small earthen mosque to observe how well this remote polling station would follow official opening procedures. Continue reading »

40% of what?

Fun with statistics:

Nobody knows how many voters there are in Afghanistan, mainly because nobody knows how many people live in Afghanistan…Over the years 17.5 million voter cards have been distributed and it is now widely accepted that several million of them are either duplicates or not linked to actual voters. Recently the IEC [Independent Electoral Commission] has been using the figure of 12.5 million estimated voters, while UN [Special Representative]  Steffan di Mistura floated the figure of 10.5 million estimated voters, just days before the election.

Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says voters cast 3.6 million ballots in Saturday’s parliamentary election and that turnout was 40%. If this is the case, then there can only be about 9 million registered voters. Seems a bit low. How did the IEC get this number? According to the IEC:

…turnout figures are expressed as a percentage of voters who could have voted and did.

In other words, they took a stab at the number of registered voters and subtracted from that their guess of how many lived in areas too insecure to open polling stations.

Sure, why not. Let’s just make up numbers. Here’s what we do know: turnout was 25% less than last year’s presidential election and down close to 50% from the 2005 parliamentary election. These trends are probably a better measure of turnout than the IEC’s made up stuff.

Afghanistan Election Watch pt. 1: Location, Location, Location

Shortly after my return from a deployment with the U.S. Army to Uganda, which I blogged about a few times on this site, I was offered the chance to come to Afghanistan as a Long-term Election Observer with Democracy International. Having been deployed here from 2006-7, and with this being such a critical election – and a critical period, generally, for Afghanistan – I enthusiastically accepted the opportunity.

I realized that I might be sent almost anywhere, since Democracy International is endevouring to send observers to a representative sample of locations throughout the country. Part of me wanted to return to Ghazni Province, where I was stationed, to see how things have changed. But Ghazni is apparently such a high-risk area now that it is off limits to our delegation. Which is too bad, because 107 of Ghazni’s 379 polling centers have been closed by Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Commission due to security concerns – to the protest of many of the province’s residents (see story here) who believe that they are being disenfranchised. Ghazni would have been an interesting place to observe how the ongoing war is affecting the election.

But I am happy to be reporting now from a much smaller, much safer province than Ghazni – which I will not name here, in order to keep my partner and I (and the people we interact with) safe. Like much of the country, it has some astonishing mountain views and a rich local history and culture.

Three of the reasons I am happy to be an LTO here so far (besides the idyllic views) are the following: Continue reading »