Mass abstention and vote rigging in Afghanistan election

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Mass abstention and vote rigging in Afghanistan election
By Patrick O’Connor
21 August 2009

Yesterday’s presidential election in Afghanistan featured massive
abstention and blatant ballot rigging, underscoring the corrupt
character of the entire exercise. Conducted under the guns of 100,000
foreign troops, the vote had nothing to do with democracy and was
instead designed to provide a veneer of legitimacy for the US-led NATO
forces’ increasingly bloody counter-insurgency campaign against those
resisting the occupation.

Preliminary results are not expected until September 3, with final
results two weeks later. If incumbent president Hamid Karzai or
another candidate fails to win more than 50 percent of the reported
vote, there will be a runoff ballot in October between the top two
candidates, expected to be Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah
Abdullah.

Election commission official Zekria Barakzai told Agence France-Presse
that national turnout might reach 50 percent—sharply down from the 70
percent turnout reported in 2004. This year’s real participation rate
was probably considerably lower than Barakzai’s estimate, although the
true figure will likely never be determined due to electoral fraud.

Turnout was zero or near zero in parts of Afghanistan’s
Pashtun-majority south, areas that have seen the worst of the US-NATO
onslaught in recent months. The Taliban and other militant groups
fighting the occupiers now effectively control large swathes of the
country, and were able to enforce their call for a boycott of the
presidential election in several areas. Few people voted in other
regions in which coalition forces have only tenuous control. In
Sangin, Helmand province—currently occupied by British-led forces—the
Times of London reported that out of 70,000 eligible voters in the
district, fewer than 500 people cast ballots.

Incumbent President Hamid Karzai said that the Taliban had conducted
73 attacks yesterday in 15 of the country’s 34 provinces. According to
other reports, between 20 and 30 people were killed. The New York
Times reported that insurgents erected roadblocks in one area to deter
voting and executed two people in Kandahar whose fingers were stained
with the purple ink used to identify voters. These developments came
despite efforts by US-NATO and government forces to provide tight
security—a total of 300,000 foreign and Afghan soldiers and police
were deployed to guard polling stations.

Sections of the US and international media have attributed yesterday’s
mass abstention entirely to the population’s fears over security and
possible reprisals from the Taliban. While this was no doubt a factor
in some areas, there were similar security fears during the 2004 poll.
The election boycott by far broader sections of the population can
only be understood as an expression of the widely felt disgust and
hostility towards Karzai and the other presidential candidates. His
opponents were for the most part corrupt ex-war lords, war criminals,
and mafia-type figures vying to become Washington’s chosen figurehead.

The Associated Press reporting from one voting centre in Kabul, said
it had “swarmed with people in 2004”. This year, however, it “opened
on time at 7 a.m.—but with no voters”. Local shop owner Mohammad Tahir
said: “I am not voting. It won’t change anything in our country.”

Such sentiments were intensified by widespread reports of electoral
fraud. About 17 million names were officially registered to
vote—greater than one-third more than in 2004. A substantial number of
these registrations—reportedly as many as 3 million—were fraudulent.
During the election campaign, British reporters found election cards
available for sale in Kabul. An inspection of the voter rolls revealed
blatantly faked enrolments—the BBC highlighted the enrolled Afghan
voter named “Britney Jamilia Spears”.

Several reports emerged yesterday of people arriving at polling
stations with multiple voting cards. In addition, supposedly indelible
ink used to mark voters’ fingers proved to be easily washed off with
household detergent.

Presidential candidate and ex-World Bank official Ramazan Bashardost
responded by calling for the vote to be called off. “This is not an
election, this is a comedy,” he declared.

The Guardian reported: “It is difficult to underestimate the
embarrassment this will cause election organisers after a failure to
buy the correct ink for the 2004 poll led to widespread multiple
voting. The so-called ink scandal of 2004 caused fury among many
voters and election organisers vowed it would never happen again. In a
recent attempt to bolster confidence in the election, the local UN
chief Kai Eide invited journalists to watch him attempt to remove ink
from his finger with a range of domestic cleaners.”

There were also several reports of large-scale ballot stuffing. The
Times visited a polling station at Haji Janat Gul High School, in
Pul-e-Charki, east of Kabul. Arriving less than an hour after the
polls opened, reporters waited for another hour without seeing a
single person come to vote. Election supervisors nevertheless insisted
that 5,530 ballots were cast before the reporters arrived. “In each
box there were an oddly uniform 500 to 510 votes,” the Times noted.
“Assuming that the last voter disappeared at least two minutes before
the Times arrived at 7.55 a.m., the staff working on the 12 ballot
boxes at the site must have been processing at least 100 voters per
minute since polling began.”

Sources from the Independent Election Commission later admitted that
they were investigating reports that up to 70,000 illegal votes had
been cast in polling centres around the Haji Janat Gul polling centre.

The British Independent reported from a polling station in Nad-e-Ali,
the most populous area of Helmand province: “Call it the mystery of
the invisible voters ... just over 400 people had voted by 1 p.m.
Three hours later, the figure had apparently surged to some 1,200.
This despite the fact the streets were empty, all shops and businesses
were shut and an Afghan army officer saying his men standing guard had
hardly seen any civilians heading to these particular voting
booths.... Election officials were later seen counting piles of ballot
papers, without even checking the choices, simply declaring the votes
had been cast for incumbent president Hamid Karzai.”

None of these reports prevented President Barack Obama from endorsing
the election. In a White House radio interview yesterday, he declared:
“We had what appears to be a successful election in Afghanistan
despite the Taliban’s efforts to disrupt it.”

The election outcome will likely soon be followed by the deployment of
additional US troops to Afghanistan. There are growing calls from
within the military and foreign policy establishment for an
intensified offensive aimed at suppressing resistance to the
occupation and bolstering US hegemony in the country and throughout
Central Asia. Obama has pledged to step up operations in both
Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan’s border region. This
strategy—involving the use of indiscriminate force against civilian
populations in both countries—is driven by US imperialism’s need to
maintain its grip over the strategically vital region.

Opposition to Obama’s war drive is escalating among ordinary people in
the US. A Washington Post-ABC News opinion poll released yesterday
found that 51 percent said the Afghanistan war had not been worth
fighting, while 47 percent said it had. Just 24 percent agreed that
additional troops should be deployed, against 45 percent who said the
present number should be reduced.

The author recommends:

Afghanistan’s gunpoint election
[20 August 2009]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/afgh-a21.shtml

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