MILLIONS of voters helped bring Afghanistan a crucial step closer to its first peaceful and democratic transfer of power. On Saturday June 14th the country held the last stage of voting to select its next president. In what seemed like a show of support for the process, 7m Afghans cast ballots, according to the official estimate—despite a slew of reasons they had been given to stay home. If that figure from the authorities proves accurate, the run-off was just as successful as the round that set the stage for it on April 5th.
As in April, there were sporadic incidents of violence around the country on June 14th. Hundreds of small-scale attacks by the Taliban killed dozens of security forces. It is likely that even an even greater number of civilians were killed. Yet in establishing the legitimacy of the election, perception is as important as reality. In that respect the day can be counted as a success, in so far as the violence seems to have been restricted to the fringes of voting centres, and mostly in rural areas. It was not sufficient to disrupt the process at the national scale.
The nightmare scenario for anxious Afghan officials and Western diplomats—a “spectacular” large-scale attack or suicide bomber in a crowded polling centre—never materialised. The most hideous attack of the day may have been one that did not kill anybody: Taliban in the western province of Herat took hold of 11 men who had voted and had ink stains on their fingertips to prove it. The militants cut off their fingers.
The effective work done by the Afghan security forces could be a boon for the national psyche. Many are still not convinced that the Afghan army will be capable of holding their own as the American-led foreign forces begin their withdrawal later this year. The example being set in Iraq, by the Iraqi army, is none too inspiring.
One of the more encouraging sights on Saturday was everyday voters leaving their election centres and stopping to shake hands with the army and police stationed there. The police in particular have had a reputation as a predatory force, quick to seek bribes in roadside shakedowns. But after this round of voting pictures were posted to social media that showed police some being presented with flowers by grateful civilians.
Though the turnout was impressive, the 7m-figure announced early on Saturday night by election chief was at odds with anecdotal accounts. People watching in Kabul and other provinces felt sure they had seen greater numbers at the time of the April vote. But both Afghan and Western officials had already expected that hot weather, the planting season, apathy about the candidates, threats from the Taliban would conspire to result in a lower turnout. And this time there were no concurrent provincial council elections, whose candidates are better at mobilising voters.
It is too soon for applause. The election still has great potential to get messy, despite the relative success of both voting days.
Neither of the remaining contenders, Abdullah Abdullah (pictured voting), an urbane diplomat who serves as the nominal leader of the opposition to President Hamid Karzai, nor Ashraf Ghani, a technocrat turned man-of-the-people, has indicated that he might take losing well. Indeed either of candidates can be expected to allege fraud and other skulduggery if the counting goes against him. Dr Abdullah is an ophthalmologist by training but is better known as the aide to Ahmed Shah Massoud, a slain leader of the mujahideen who defeated the Soviets. He went into the run-off election as a warm favourite, having secured 45% of the vote in the first round and then taking in an array of high-profile endorsements from the candidates who dropped out.
In this round however, Dr Abdullah faced the possibility of the whole country’s Pushtun voters coalescing against him. Though he is of mixed Pushtun-Tajik ethnicity, his association with Massoud and the Northern Alliance has inclined the public to regard him as a Tajik.
Pushtuns are by far the more numerous and their leaders have ruled the country, in monarchical times, under the Taliban and today under Hamid Karzai. Mr Ghani is squarely one of them. Appeals to the ethnic divide have been an unfortunate feature of the past few weeks of the run-off campaign, though they were not a prominent part of the campaign preceding the April 5th poll.
There is plenty of time for things to go foul. Whatever the preliminary results show, they are not expected to be finalised until July 2nd at the earliest.
by J.K. | KABUL
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