Afghan vote threatens Bushs credibility
Administration needs success to back claim of spreading democracy
Tuesday, 17-Aug-2004

KABUL, August 17 (The Toronto Star) — With evidence mounting of plans for widespread vote-rigging in Afghanistans upcoming elections, U.S. experts say the controversy could emerge as a serious liability for U.S. President George W. Bushs re-election campaign.

After voter registration centres closed across Afghanistan on the weekend, election officials acknowledged the number of voting cards issued far exceeded the estimated number of eligible voters — and that the illegal practice of multiple registrations is widespread.

"An Afghan election marred by allegations of fraud would be bad for President Bushs overall claim of promoting democracy in the Muslim world," said Husain Haqqani, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "In the absence of good news from Iraq, the Bush administration needs Afghanistan as its success story."

For months, Bush has staked his claims on a successful democratic Afghanistan, saying it would serve as an example of how America can bring democracy, and free and fair elections to the developing world.

"The rise of democratic institutions in Afghanistan and Iraq is a great step toward a goal of lasting importance to the world," Bush said in a speech in Washington last March. "We have set out to encourage reform and democracy."

But with seven weeks to go before the Oct. 9 poll, the Star has found the practice of multiple registrations is rife.

Observers also claim the ground work necessary for a free and fair election — security, reconstruction and political stability — has not been established in Afghanistan and that the U.S. hurriedly pushed the country into elections to further its own agenda.

"The United States wants, before the November elections, to showcase a victory of the Bush administration by proving it is possible to bring democracy to an Islamic Third World country," said Assem Akram, an Afghan historian and author based in Washington. "And if American voters grant George Bush a new mandate, his administration will reproduce the same successful model in Iraq. That is why there is so much hurry."

With scarce funds and hasty plans for rebuilding Afghanistan, some critics arent surprised the elections are starting to unravel in advance of polling day. Although it will take at least a week to report the final tally of registered voters, United Nations officials overseeing the elections admit that more than 10 million voting cards have been issued — surpassing the estimated 9.8 million eligible voters.

"Probably there is a lot of multiple registering," U.N. spokesperson Manoel de Almeida e Silva said yesterday.

"This is not perfect. There will be problems. In many countries, they have lots of problems during their first elections."

In a country where the average income is $2 a day, some Afghans who heard that political parties and presidential candidates would pay up to $150 for voting cards, gladly lined up at registration centres several times to get multiple voting cards.

In separate interviews, two Afghans told the Star it was easy to obtain more than one card. One man who registered six times, using his real name and photograph, said U.N. election workers asked him only once if he had previously registered. A woman said her nephew had been approached at school numerous times to sell his laminated voting card and that she knows a woman who obtained 40 cards while cloaked in a burqa.

The blatant violation of election rules has prompted two presidential candidates — Latif Pedram, leader of the Congress Mili Afghanistan Party and independent candidate, Ahmad Shah Amadzai — to call for an investigation.

Overall, the registration process has been rife with many problems: 12 election workers were killed; Afghans confused their voter ID cards for food rations and prescriptions; men forbade wives, sisters and daughters from getting voting cards; and many uneducated people simply dont understand what their first election is about. Originally scheduled for last June, the election has twice been postponed — first due to low registration turnout and later because of security concerns.

Jawed Ludin, a spokesperson for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, said there could be thousands of people who have multiple cards, most whom he believes live in cities rather than rural areas. But, he stressed, most Afghans maintain only one card.

He insisted no one involved in Karzais election campaign has bought voting cards. "The president is a candidate who would never do anything like that."

Mustafa Durani, country representative for the International Republican Institute in Kabul, believes more than 1 million Afghans have registered twice. But he shrugs it off.

"Illegal things happen," said Durani, whose Washington-based group is associated with the U.S. Republican Party.

He stressed that it does not matter if someone registers one or 30 times because they are only allowed one vote.

Kit Spence of the National Democratic Institute, said that after 25 years of brutal wars and oppression, its no wonder that the country is struggling to hold a free and fair election.

"Theres going to be fraud, theres going to be mismanagement, theres going to be people who just dont understand how the process works and they are going to screw up," said Spence, whose group has ties to the U.S. Democrats.

The Carnegie centres Haqqani, however, warns that if the elections are fraught with illegal vote-rigging activities, the U.S. and Karzai are going to have a battle on their hands.

"Elections must be seen to be fraud-free or their legitimacy, and that of the elected leaders, remains questionable," he said.

"The real issue is: Will the Afghan people, by and large, find the election exercise honest and fair? And that, more than charges and responses to them, will determine whether the elections were a success or not."