BACKGROUND: Under the terms of the Bonn accord, a transitional government headed by President Hamid Karzai was installed following the ouster of the Taliban through a military invasion spearheaded by the US Army. An emergency Loya Jirga in 2002 conferred an element of legitimacy on the government set-up. It was followed the next year by the constitutional Loya Jirga, which gave Afghanistan a new constitution and set the timetable for holding the presidential and parliamentary elections. The presidential polls, won by Karzai, in 2004 generated unprecedented enthusiasm because it was the first time in Afghanistan\'s history that the holder of the most powerful executive office was being elected through ballot. Though the polls were flawed in many respect, the high turnout of 70 per cent showed that most Afghans preferred ballot to bullet as a means to elect their leaders and change governments. By comparison, the turnout in the parliamentary polls has dropped to 53 per cent with only 6.8 million out of the 12.5 million registered voters coming out to vote. This was despite the presence of more than 6,000 candidates, who were expected to bring larger number of voters to the polling stations compared to the presidential polls in which 17 contestants took the field. The comparatively poor turnout was due to dissatisfaction with the performance of President Karzai and his cabinet, the candidature of many warlords and drug-lords despite allegations of human rights abuses and corruption against them, and the electorate\'s lack of trust in the ability of the upcoming parliament to bring positive changes in their lives. Opponents of the Karzai government and those opposed to the presence of US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan made a conscious choice not to vote or were kept out of the electoral process. The Joint Electoral Management Board (JEMB), which organized the polls, argued that investigations into the allegations of fraud had slowed the count and delayed announcement of the certified results. Fifty JEMB employees were fired for alleged fraud in different parts of the country. Moreover, 680 ballot boxes, which made up three per cent of the vote, were taken out of the counting process because of suspicions they were stuffed. The sacking of election staff and the admission of the organizers that some of the ballot boxes might have been stuffed also created doubts about the transparency of the elections. The parliamentary polls were non-party but political parties and alliances campaigned for their candidates and devised strategies to win seats both in the Wolesi Jirga (House of the People or National Assembly) and the 34 provincial councils, one in each province. However, candidates had to stand as independents and out of necessity solicit votes in the name of regional, religious, ethnic and linguistic affiliation or highlight his or her tribal and clan affinities to seek support from fellow tribespeople.

IMPLICATIONS: The parliamentary elections were held to transform Afghanistan into a functioning democracy but the contentious decision to conduct the polls on non-party basis kept political parties, so essential for the democratic process, out of the process. It apparently was a clever move to manipulate the elected parliament and organize a pro-Karzai parliamentary group after the polls to keep his opponents at bay. It is true that most political parties in Afghanistan are ethnic-based armed factions with a bloody past, but parliamentary democracy cannot do without party politics. Those declared elected are an interesting mix of former warlords, clergymen, ex-communists, nationalists, liberals and Taliban figures. Some accused of drug-trafficking and human rights abuses have also made it to the parliament, and so have non-political personalities with large financial resources. However, the majority of the elected have a conservative mindset and there is an abundance of clergymen in the list with the familiar prefix of Maulvis, Alhajs and Ustads. A few elected women legislators too use the prefix Haji and Alhaj with their names, as if trying to convince voters about their religious credentials in a country steeped in conservatism. President Karzai did not openly endorse any party or candidate, though it is unlikely that he stayed aloof from the electoral contest. His elder brother Abdul Qayyum Karzai won a seat in his native Kandahar province while younger brother Ahmad Wali Karzai was elected to Kandahar\'s provincial council. Many other Karzai supporters also won seats and there is already talk of forming a pro-Karzai group in parliament. Opposition winners such as Mohammad Younus Qanuni, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, Faizullah Zaki who is loyal to Uzbek warlord Abdul Rasheed Dostum, Ismaili spiritual figure Syed Mansoor Naderi from Baghlan province, etc. could also coalesce into a block to challenge President Karzai in the parliament. Ethnic and regional politics would likely play a role in the formation of the parliamentary blocks with the Pashtuns siding with the President and most non-Pashtuns opposing him. Former mujahideen leaders winning seats include Mohaqiq, Qanuni, and Burhanuddin Rabbani, Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf. Six former Taliban figures contested the elections and three scored victories. They included Mulla Abdul Salam Rocketi from Zabul province where the turnout was a lowly 25 per cent, Maulvi Mohammad Islam Mohammadi, governor of Bamiyan during Taliban rule who won a seat from his native Samangan province, and Taliban security official Hanif Shah al-Hussein. The losers included former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawwakil, who cannot move freely and needs government protection in Kabul after his release from US custody and Maulvi Qalamuddin, who earned notoriety as head of the Taliban religious police. Former communists Noorul Haq Olumi, who is now head of a reformed progressive party, ex-interior minister Syed Mohammad Gulabzoi, and Babrak Shinwari, who once served as deputy minister, also won seats. A remarkable 68 female candidates were elected on seats reserved for women. The female representation in Afghanistan\'s parliament now is better than that in advanced Western countries such as the US, UK, France and Germany. However, it is unlikely that the higher female representation in the elected bodies in Afghanistan would alter the ground realities in the strictly male-dominated country. Some of the female candidates did very well in the polls despite the constraints in campaigning publicly and confronting an electoral field monopolized by male contestants. Fauzia Gailani from Herat with no political experience, led the field of 17 winners for the National Assembly from her province with 16,885 votes. Many voters openly said they voted for her due to her beauty. Her posters, as well as those of other beautiful female contestants, including the unmarried 25-year old Sabrina Saqeb from Kabul and Fawzia Kofi from Badakhshan, sold like hot cakes and fetched them winning votes. Some of the female winners were accomplished in their area of work. Among them were journalists Malalai Shinwari and Shukria Barakzai from Kabul, NGO activist Safia Siddiqui from Nangarhar, Dr Fatima Aziz from Kunar, firebrand political worker from Farah province Malalai Joya who had the courage to criticize warlords at the Loya Jirga in 2002, and Dr Shakila Hashmi from Logar.

CONCLUSIONS: It was more than 30 years ago that Afghanistan experimented with a limited form of democracy with the all-powerful King Zahir Shah allowing the formation of an elected parliament and letting a weak prime minister run the government. By holding the parliamentary polls, Afghanistan is now experimenting with a new form of democracy in which a vastly empowered President would have to contend with demands by a weak parliament for greater powers. If the partyless parliament and the 34 provincial councils, whose role and powers are ill-defined, descend into chaos due to absence of party discipline, the country\'s rulers and their foreign sponsors would have to share the blame for holding the elections on non-party basis. First the presidential polls, and now the parliamentary elections, have raised expectations but the insecurity in the country due to increased guerilla attacks by the resurgent Taliban, the slow reconstruction on account of host of factors including donor fatigue, and the sluggish growth of the economy are posing challenges that the Karzai government and the new democratic dispensation could find difficult to surmount. The elections might have empowered the Afghan people, but failure to fulfill their expectations could derail the democratic experiment.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Rahimullah Yusufzai is an executive editor of The News International, an English daily published from Pakistan\'s capital, Islamabad, and Lahore and Karachi. He is based in Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan and is also a correspondent for the BBC, ABC News and Time magazine.