April 05th Election; success and challenges
Introduction:
The third round of presidential election after falling of Taliban Regime in Afghanistan was conducted throughout the country, and Afghans voted to elect the second president since falling of the Taliban regime in 2001.
The results are due to be announced on 14/April/2014, but probably the election will go to the second round, due to the plurality of the candidates and that no one might gain 50+1 votes to win in the first round.
The election witnessed some difficulties as well. According to the reports, large number of complaints has been submitted to the electoral complaints commission, and the military institutions also spoke about several attacks on the polling centers and casualties of tens of Afghan security forces; but in spite all of that the participation of the people had increased comparing with previous elections.
Waheed Muzhda a political analyst in reply to the questions of the CSRS analyzed this event:
The reason of extensive participation of the people:
The widespread participation of the people in this election compared with the previous ones can have two reasons: first, in the two previous elections Hamid Karzai was one of the candidates, and the people thought that their vote might not be that much effective and Hamid Karzai will be the president, so the people were not so much interested. In this election, Hamid Karzai was not among the candidates and the people paid attention to the future of Afghanistan and a scare from the possible threats in the future caused the widespread participation in this election. Secondly, the public awareness that this round of election is very important for the future of Afghanistan also had a shadow on the participation of people and caused the increasing number of voters.
After the polling day and before the announcement of the results, while the Independent Election Commission has not declared officially or informally the results of the election some of the candidates claim victory, which other candidates might not accept the result and it will cause chaos. This issue will cause the feeling of some candidates that widespread fraud and violations took place in the election. Furthermore, the claim of some of the candidates that they are the winner at the first round and the election will not go to the second round, is questionable, since this is the IEC who decides whether it goes to the second round or not, instead of the candidates.
The fear of ethnic divisions in the second round:
The plurality of the candidates and division of the votes has increased the likeliness of not gaining 50+1 votes through one of the candidates and the second round run-off, which will have its problems and challenges.
But the main fear from the second round run-off is the ethnic divisions, but it is expected that it will be prevented since this will have horrible threats for the future of Afghanistan.
The main challenge against the upcoming government:
The main challenge against the upcoming government is peace and stability; since this process has not been successful yet.
The position of the upcoming government towards foreign troops will clear the destiny of the peace, if the upcoming government could not stand against the selfishness of the foreign troops it will soon be face with serious problems; but if it has its independency and stands against headstrongness of the foreign forces then it will have better chances.
Foreigners and foreign countries were involved in the election process in one or another way, and supported different election tickets, and even provided financial support for them, but with all these, Afghans were more involved in the frauds and irregularities during the election. Now, the two electoral commissions should answer to all these questions and separate transparent from counterfeit votes; and we hope they do so; otherwise the result of the election will be under questions.