AFGHAN CANDIDATES ARE BACKING DOWN
Cori Dauber
rantingprofs.com
The candidates who had been complaining, even threatening to boycott, are now saying an independent investigation into voting irregularities in Afghanistan's Saturday election will satisfy them.
According to diplomats and other sources, the opposition candidates, who announced they were boycotting the election halfway through the polling Saturday afternoon, began to think twice after realizing the great majority of Afghans were happy about the election and that public opinion was turning against them.
"Some candidates now believe they acted in too much of a rush. Their statements were not well received," said a Western diplomat who met with many of the complaining candidates Saturday night and Sunday. "Most of them are now looking for a way out without losing face."
It looks as if, given that they all knew going in they weren't going to win, and given that the international monitors didn't think the problems were sufficient to stop the balloting, they're deciding to be smart politicians about it, join the national celebration, and make process arguments, not be process purists -- although this article makes it pretty clear, also, that there was a fair amount of Western arm twisting (although not horse trading.) The fact that there isn't any evidence of a quid pro quo here (you can keep complaining but stop saying the election isn't valid and we'll give you X) actually encourages me -- why would they do that except because they see how popular opinion is going and they want to preserve their future political viability? That's normal political activity.
In any event, now comes phase 2, with the ballots being flow, taxied, and, ahem, donkeyed in for counting.
Karzai on NBC this morning promised that the counting would be televised on Afghan TV.
You gotta love that. The only time ballot counting is on American TV is when things have gone completely south, not because the whole process is seen as so exciting.
My sense of the whole thing is this: I suspect this was not a perfect election. But, again, you can't measure what's happened against some kind of abstract standard. The perfect is often the enemy of the good. Particularly at the start, given what these people were enduring three years ago, if Afghan democracy is the equivalent of, oh, lets say, Mayor Daley's Chicago, you've really accomplished something.
An awful lot of people voted who shouldn't have (say, because they had died.)
Some people may have been a bit more enthusiastic about exercising their franchise than was appropriate (perhaps returning to the polls for repeat performances.)
Poll watchers might have been, uh, visually challenged, and those counting ballots might not have been good with math.
But it was a starting point, and it was stable, and politics mattered (even if mostly during primary season) and things got done, and nobody was beaten in the street and women could leave their homes and there was a press not just free but out and out lively.
I'm being somewhat tongue in cheek here, obviously (I hope obviously.)
I'm not suggesting Machine Politics as an actual model.
But what I am suggesting is that less than perfect democracy can be a starting point from which a legitimate politics can emerge and it can create a good and decent place to live and raise a family.
I'm suggesting that voting irregularities do not mean that either we nor the international community nor the Afghan people have failed here or that this was not truly a democratic election.
This was truly something to celebrate -- as long as we don't stand still, but really do see this as a good starting point. |
