BACKGROUND: On March 28, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai stated that national elections were to be postponed until September. This decision came after the United Nations said that elections could not be held in June, as outlined in the 2002 Bonn Agreement. The UN claimed that “Lack of security, slow progress in the disarmament of militias, slow voter registration and a weakly-developed legal and institutional framework for democratic politics are jeopardizing the success of any future elections. Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) are requisites for the holding of free and fair elections.” The Bonn Agreement called for presidential elections to be held within two years after the meeting of the emergency Loya Jirga, which took place in June 2002. Elections were postponed due to the lack of security, the lack of voter rolls, 30-year old census data, the lack of a basic infrastructure of holding elections, slow progress in the disarmament of militias, and weakly developed legal and institutional frameworks. Various issues, which are not directly related to elections, also played a significant role in their postponement such as poor communication, little access to remote areas and the difficulties of educating the people about elections and candidates. The Voter Registration Project Agreement was signed on August 14, 2003 between UN representatives and the Afghan Electoral Commission. The estimated US $75.6 million cost of the project will be covered by UNDP. There has never been a voter registry in Afghanistan, and the process is even more complicated in the absence of any census. Until now, only 1.5 million out of a potential 10.5 million voters have been registered. In the past women were excluded from any electoral process so their registration is still a big problem. Among women, voter registration is only two percent, which is around 100,000 women. The UN has said that for a successful ballot, at least 70 per cent of eligible voters should be registered. Registration has been slow because of the limited number of voting stations. The Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) will set up 4,200 registration and polling stations throughout Afghanistan in 32 provinces from 1-25 May but the security for many of these stations remains a concern. After the assassination of Bettina Goislard, a French national working for UNHCR in Ghazni, the Office of UN Volunteers has stopped recruiting workers for voter registration. Since last August, almost 600 people have been killed in violence. Police have found leaflets in the southeast specifically warning people away from voter registration. The overall context of sporadic violence has fostered an atmosphere ideal for voter, election monitor, and candidate intimidation. Besides the lack of security, paved roads, and basic election infrastructure, Afghanistan at present has no electoral law to draw on. Electoral jurisdictions have yet to be drawn up and agreed upon. Voting rules need to be drafted, approved, and implemented by the government.

IMPLICATIONS: The opposition to President Karzai has perceived this delay as his failure. As a result, the legitimacy of the government has also been questioned. Mr. Karzai needs to preserve government legitimacy to avoid political chaos. One way to forestall political chaos in the event of further election postponements is to reconvene the Loya Jirga to reaffirm the legitimacy of extending his term in order to ensure that national elections will be properly conducted. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has said that postponing elections would trigger a crisis of legitimacy for the Afghan government. If the delay goes beyond September, elections will have to be conducted next year because of the winter. This will require yet another meeting of the Loya Jirga to approve the further delay. Though economic rehabilitation is significant for political stability, a democratic environment cannot be created until the government exercises the rule of law and disarms civilian militias. To achieve this goal Afghanistan is forming a national army with 7,500 men to help in the disarmament program and to provide security for the elections. Provincial Reconstruction Teams are another effort to bring more security to Afghanistan. The process of registration of voters reflects the ethnic and regional balance of Afghan population, which made the registration process complicated. Pakistan is also expecting that Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and Iran would be registered and allowed to participate in the forthcoming Afghan elections, to confer legitimacy and credibility to the election process. It might aggravate rising ethnic tensions. The option to hold presidential election while postponing the parliamentary was rejected as it could also exacerbate tensions between the Pushtoons and non-Pushtoons. The legal framework for elections, moreover, remains unclear. Mr. Karzai has yet to issue either a draft electoral law or a presidential decree on the controversial issue of provincial and district boundaries that would form electoral constituencies. It appears that the setting of final electoral boundaries, organizing political parties and even preparing ballots for dozens of candidates in different parts of the country is a hard task to accomplish, even by September. Mr. Karzai cannot assert his power beyond Kabul as he admits that his government is facing logistical problems. If the situation remains as it is, elections in September will only confirm an undemocratic and unstable status quo, which will bring more harm than good. The government and political parties have to agree upon an electoral law, on constituencies, on the registration of political parties, and the registration of candidates, all formidable tasks on their own. Although the Afghan constitution does not give any specific date for holding the elections, it does state that the government has six months to draft and pass an electoral law stipulating the details of how and when the elections should take place. The constitution also stipulates that a minimum of two women per province should be seated at the national assembly. Given current progress, this goal appears overly ambitious.

CONCLUSIONS: If carried out correctly and successfully, the September 2004 elections could be a turning point for democracy in Afghanistan. However, given the obstacles and the timeframe, this is increasingly unrealistic. A delay in the elections would also allow the government and its international supporters to focus on disarming militias, tackling the growing drug trade, completing voter registration and deploying more troops to maintain security. Undoubtedly, many will read a further election delay as a setback for Karzai. However, the consequences of a poorly-managed, unmonitored, or incomplete September election are much more serious, and threaten the entire democratic project in Afghanistan.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Asma Shakir Khawaja is an Islamabad-based researcher, currently working in Islamabad Policy Research Institute on the political and strategic issues related to Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.