Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
Election Fraud in Afghanistan
For Western powers trying to establish democracy
and freedom in Afghanistan the presidential
election of 2009 was hugely embarrassing, the parliamentary vote of 2010 wasn’t much better
Hamid Karzai won Afghanistan’s 2009 presidential election but the whole exercise was corrupt from top to bottom. The 2010 parliamentary ballot showed some improvement but there has still been plenty of fraud.
Who is Hamid Karzai?
The dominant tribe in Afghanistan, a country where tribal loyalties are far more
important than national ones, is the Pashtun. Hamid Karzai (left) comes from the
Pashtun and from the same clan as the former Afghan king Mohammad Zahir Shah. His
family was prominent in Afghan politics and he was given a Western education.
A CBC News profile (September 2006) says that “For a brief time in the early 1990s, he supported the Taliban, which had taken over when the holy warriors of the mujahedeen forced the Soviet Union to end its occupation of Afghanistan. At that time, he regarded the Taliban as Pashtun, like himself.”
In 1999, the Taliban murdered Karzai’s father and that ended his relationship with the group.
Karzai Becomes Afghanistan’s President
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan banished the Taliban, Karzai was pretty much
the hand-
But, things have not gone all that well for President Karzai. Nine years after the U.S. invasion his country is wracked by more conflict than it was then. He control over most of the country is so weak that he is often referred to derisively as “The Mayor of Kabul.”
As the Christian Science Monitor reported (October 2008), “Both at home and abroad, Mr. Karzai is facing mounting criticism that he has lacked the courage to stop the government’s descent into corruption and ineffectiveness.”
In October 2008, a New York Times investigation linked the president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, to Afghanistan’s massive heroin trade.
2009 Presidential Election Rigged
When Afghan voters went to the polls on August 20, 2009, Karzai predicted he would get a higher percentage of the vote than he did in 2004.
But, as The Economist reported in September 2009 the election has been tainted by
massive ballot stuffing and corruption: “The country’s electoral-
European Union observers said about 1.5 million ballots are questionable; that’s about a quarter of those cast.
United Nations Election Official Fired
Peter Galbraith is a U.S. diplomat who was second-
In an interview with BBC World News America (October 2009) he said that when his boss, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, realized the election rigging would hurt President Karzai, “he ordered us to do nothing with it. He had good relations with Karzai, and he became Karzai’s man in the United Nations, rather than the United Nations representative to Karzai.”
Denials of Galbraith’s charges came thick and fast.
Image credit
R. D. Ward, U.S. Defense Dept.
Sources
“Hamid Karzai: A Profile.” CBC News, September 21, 2006.
“Afghans to Karzai: You Failed us.” Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor, October 23, 2008.
“Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade.” James Risen, New York Times, October 4, 2008.
“Sacked UN Man Attacks Mission.” BBC News, October 5, 2010.
“Afghan Elections 2010.” Associated Press, September 20, 2010.
© Canada and the World, October 2010
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2010
PARLIAMENTARY VOTE
In September 2010, Afghans went to the polls again, this time to elect parliamentary representatives.
Associated Press reported (September 20, 2010) that, “The main Afghan election observer group said it had serious concerns about the legitimacy of this weekend’s parliamentary vote because of reported fraud, even as President Hamid Karzai commended the balloting as a solid success.”
Voter turnout was reduced to about 24% because of bomb and rocket attacks that killed more than 20 civilians and almost a dozen police officers. As well, three polling station workers were kidnapped and their bodies were later found filled with bullet holes.
According to AP, “People said the indelible ink that is supposed to stain voters’ fingers for 72 hours could be washed off. In some polling stations, observers said poll workers were letting people vote with obviously fake voter cards.” As well, there were reports of campaign supporters stuffing ballot boxes with multiple votes for their candidates.
According to Transparency International’s 2009 report, Afghanistan is the 179th most corrupt country in the world, out of 180 nations. That is a drop of seven places since 2008.