The United Nations organisers of Afghanistan’s first democratic presidential election admitted at the weekend that they expect next Saturday’s polling to be be marred by fraud, intimidation and violence.
David Avery, chief of operations for the joint electoral management body, predicted that with more than 100 000 staff who had not seen an election before, it ”will not look pretty”.
But he insisted that the irregularities would not be enough to deny the election legitimacy, or affect the final outcome.
”Not every box is going to make it? That is probably true. In the end, you count what you have got,” he said at his headquarters in Kabul, heavily fortified against the threat of attack by the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The Taliban have posted ”night letters” — overnight posters — on mosque and other walls in southern Afghanistan threatening retribution against anyone taking part.
Aid and other international organisations have reduced their staff and operations for the election campaign period; the US and other Nato countries have sent in reinforcements, increased patrols and arrested suspects.
Although there have been intelligence reports of hundreds of Taliban fighters moving about the country, the election has so far been relatively quiet.
The transitional president, Hamid Karzai, who is expected to win, has seldom been seen outside his compound in Kabul since coming under fire on a helicopter trip to Gardez on September 16.
The other 17 candidates include warlords with long records of human rights abuses, a solitary woman and a poet. The latter, probably the most liberal, is Latif Pedram.
His movements too have been hampered by death threats.
”I can no longer enter Seelo and Baghbal [two Kabul districts] after a warlord delegated 20 men to kill me on sight,” he said.
A kidnapping threat forced him to cut short a visit to his home province.
One of his main offences was to advocate that women should enjoy the same right to divorce as men.
Another candidate, Professor Satar Sirrat, who is threatening to boycott the election as unconstitutional, accused Karzai of misspending the $3-billion donated so far from the international community for reconstruction.
”The only visible project is the road from Kabul to Kandahar,” he said.
”You could have built a road of silk with this kind of money.”
As well as coping with the Taliban and the warlords, the election organisers have to ensure that 22 000 polling stations are working on the day in a country with little infrastructure and communications: the ballot box at one polling station in the Hindu Kush will take two weeks to deliver to the counting post, by donkey.
Avery, an Australian who has been involved in postwar elections in Cambodia, Sierra Leone and East Timor, regards Afghanistan as his toughest yet.
He has hired 5 000 cellphones, 1 150 Russian jeeps, 300 donkeys, and 114 000 local staff.
There will be a polling station in every district except Mandol, in Nuristan, which even by Afghan standards is thought extremely dangerous.
”No one goes there. Not even the Taliban,” Avery said.
He has smuggled election material into some of the most hostile areas in the gaudily painted traditional trucks seen all over this part of Asia.
Each had a strip painted on the roof so that they could be tracked from the air.
The United Nations estimated that 9,5-million people were eligible to vote, but 10,5-million have registered, suggesting multiple registration.
Those voting will have a finger marked in indelible ink to try to prevent a second visit to the polling station.
Telibert Luoc, the senior programme officer with the National Democratic Institute, which is responsible for monitoring, has had problems finding international monitors because of the insecurity.
He has found only 385, most of them recruited from the embassies.
Unusually, there will be no monitors’ report.
Although concerned about Taliban attacks on election day, Afghans appear intent on enjoying the novelty of voting.
Zahal Mahbuby (20) a social science student sitting in the shade of the campus at the University of Afghanistan in Kabul, said: ”We have a lot of fear the Taliban will attack. We expect them to attack.”
She said she would vote for Karzai because, she said, she regarded him as honest.
She is rare in that she does not intend to vote on ethnic lines: a Tajik, she was prepared to vote for a Pashtun.
Although it will take two weeks to collect all the ballots, the organisers will count the votes as they come in and they expect that the trend will be obvious within a few days of the election. – Guardian Unlimited Â