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Just days after the Afghans braved the Taliban threats to vote in the second round run-off of the presidential elections on June 14, presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of orchestrating a political stalemate and that Karzai would be responsible for any political crisis that follows.
Abdullah said whatever results that have been announced, are not acceptable to him. Observers fear allegations of fraud on both sides could lead to a bitter and drawn out tussle for power along ethnic lines, which could derail attempts to transfer power democratically for the first time in Afghanistan's history.
Abdullah's team at a press conference on June 22 released audio recordings indicating collusion between the Independent Election Commission (IEC) officials and a member of rival Ashraf Ghani's team. The IEC, a day earlier, had announced it is delaying release of the results of the presidential election run-off.
Run-off
The second round run-off had pitted Abdullah, a former anti-Taliban fighter with a support base among the ethnic Tajik voters, against Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, after neither secured the required 50 percent votes polled to win outright the April 5 first round. In the first round, Abdullah had secured 45 percent votes compared to Ghani's 31 percent.
On June 14, Afghans hailed another successful election after conclusion of the second round run-off polling with millions turning out to choose a new president amongst the two remaining contenders. The election took place at the height of the summer fighting season and the polling day saw at least 150 minor attacks, after the Taliban threatened to launch "nonstop" assaults during the vote.
Officials said more than seven million people (or 52 percent of the estimated electorate of 13.5 million) cast their votes. The higher than expected turnout matched the first round turnout of seven million (though the first round was revised to 6.6 million after more than 350,000 ballots were deemed fraudulent). The votes were cast at 6,365 polling centers across the country and the attendance was so high that some 333 voting centers ran out of ballot papers. Preliminary results are expected on July 2 with final results to be announced on July 22.
The Controversy
Abdullah has demanded suspension of vote counting and declared that he has no trust in electoral bodies after initial reports on the run-off put Ghani in the lead by close to a million votes. Abdullah said his opponent's apparent million-vote lead was due to massive fraud and questioned the figures given out by IEC, which put the turnout at more than five million of an estimated 12 million eligible voters.
Abdullah alleges a surge of votes have come from the country’s eastern and southeastern provinces, the power base of Ghani. Incidentally, these are the areas where in 2009 the biggest frauds were uncovered; the IEC then had discarded more than one million votes as ineligible. This time, in Khost, a province wracked by insecurity, some 400,000 votes were cast as against just 113,000 in the first round.
The chief of the IEC had earlier said that vote tabulation would not stop and that the authority was willing to respond to any complaints raised by Abdullah. The election complaints body has received more than 560 complaints of fraud so far, according information available
The UN mission in Afghanistan had warned that if candidates abandon the legal process and framework to appeal directly to their supporters on the issue of electoral inconsistencies, it could incite violence. Not surprisingly, about 100 supporters of Abdullah demonstrated in Kabul on June 19 chanting slogans against the IEC and Karzai. Protests are likely to intensify if the situation is not defused soon.
On June 20 Karzai changed course and endorsed Abdullah's call for the UN to get involved in investigating his claims of election fraud. In a meeting with Jan Kubis, the UN special envoy, Karzai said the involvement of the UN would be "a good step toward ending the problems, because any organization that can help Afghanistan in this issue is appreciated”. Earlier, Abdullah had suggested that a resolution to the crisis might involve the United Nations, a notion that the agency had shot down. Ghani too has welcomed the idea, and his spokesperson said: “We don’t have any problem with the UN conducting an investigation of the votes and that any neutral organization that wants to investigate the issue is welcome.”
Preliminary results of the run-off are not due until July 2, but Abdullah's complaints of electoral fraud and refusal to accept the outcome has raised the risk of a protracted political crisis as most International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of this year and the threat of the Taliban looms large.
Assessment
Analysts had assessed that the second round run-off would pose its own set of challenges. It was expected to expose the Afghans to the risk from the Taliban, delay the signing of the Afghan-US security pact and also threaten to inject more bitterness between the two candidates, making it harder for the winning side to form a stable government afterwards.
Jandad Spenghar, director of an Afghan election watchdog, had expressed concerns about the ethnicization of the election in the second round, as he expected the number of people voting on ethnic basis would be higher; and further intensification of ethnic divisions could create an environment for fraud and challenge the entire process. The events unfortunately seem to be unfolding as predicted.
The first round elections conducted in April have been hailed, in context of the Taliban, for two reasons: one for the security provided by Afghan security forces to enable voting, and two, that the Taliban appeared to bow to the wishes of the Afghan people with regard to holding of elections. Worryingly, it appears that the Taliban may have willingly conceded these “gains” as it read the political situation in Afghanistan better than any of the other stakeholders.
Three aspects are clear to the Taliban: it cannot control all of Afghanistan by force; two, deepening of the ethic divide will facilitate its game plan, and three, it needs Afghans to be disenchanted with the democratic process to succeed politically.
By manipulating the voting pattern in areas controlled by it in the south and southeast of the country, the Taliban has ensured that Abdullah leads the first round, but falters in the second round just when the possibility of his being the next president had taken root. This would ensure that emotions among the minorities run high when Abdullah cries foul, and the polarisation between the Pashtuns and the rest is significant and deep. The stage would be then set for Taliban to claim most of Afghanistan.
Few Afghan rulers have successfully passed on the mantle of leadership, and since 1973 no Afghan ruler has peacefully transferred power to another. If controversy around Abdullah's allegations, right or wrong, persists it will damage the possibility of a democratic transition of power in Afghanistan.
By Special Arrangement with : South Asia Monitor (http://www.southasiamonitor.org)