Absent from the run-up to weekend parliamentary elections in Afghanistan has been a vocal demand from Ottawa and other Western capitals that this vote be free of the fraud that plagued last year’s presidential election.
Around the world, governments are lowering expectations. And in Ottawa, 10 months before Canadian troops leave Kandahar, there is also a sense of intellectual disengagement from Afghanistan.
A year ago, the deep fraud that marred President Hamid Karzai’s election seared Western public opinion about the potential for progress, and raised questions about whether he would have the legitimacy to win over hearts and minds at home. International pressure forced a run off, until Mr. Karzai’s opponent dropped out.
In the aftermath, the heat was turned up on Afghanistan to reduce corruption and strengthen its institutions. This time, one might have expected loud warnings that the international community won’t tolerate jiggery-pokery.
Instead, those calls to action have given way to muddled compromises and the fear that setting a too-high bar for Afghan elections will only make the flaws seem bigger.
In the United States, Obama administration officials have been working to lower expectations, according to reports, stressing that Mr. Karzai isn’t directly responsible because the elections are run by an elections commission and he isn’t running as a candidate.
There, as in Ottawa, officials will privately acknowledge there will be fraud and violence, but stress the importance of Afghans campaigning and voting in difficult circumstances.
A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, Catherine Loubier, said in an e-mail that the Canadian government will “look to the Government of Afghanistan and the Independent Electoral Commission to set the necessary conditions for a legitimate, secure, transparent and inclusive election.” But she described it not as a litmus test, but rather “an important step in the country’s ongoing democratic development.”
An Afghan traffic policeman directs traffic on a busy road adorned with pictures of candidates taking part in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Kabul September 15, 2010. Afghans will vote on September 18 during parliamentary elections, where poor security and fraud will be among the major issues. — Fayaz Kabli/Reuters
Two days away from parliamentary elections where more than 2,500 candidates are running for 249 seats in the lower house, there are reports of large-scale printing of counterfeit ballots across the border in Pakistan. Allied commanders are bracing for violence from the Taliban, and the UN has evacuated a third of its staff.
There are hopes that there will be improvement. The new head of Afghanistan’s elections commission is widely given high marks, after firing hundreds of officials from the last election, and setting an early list of almost 6,000 polling stations.
And though the parliament’s powers are weak, and Mr. Karzai isn’t on the ballot, the stakes are high enough to matter. Mr. Karzai’s allies have an interest in seeing their candidates elected, and Afghans will know whether they or others have dramatically rigged the vote.
In the United States, lowering expectations for the elections is part of a pattern of compromise between trying to improve institutions, and ensuring they don’t kill support and alliances in the process: Obama administration officials are now debating whether to give Mr. Karzai a bigger role in American-backed corruption investigations, the New York Times reported this week.
But in Canada, the space for Afghanistan policy is shrinking. With the withdrawal of troops settled, the government has entered a holding pattern, and displays little desire to disturb the quiet. The Harper government has said it will concentrate on diplomacy and development when troops leave, but hasn’t announced plans. The Liberals have called for Canadian Forces army trainers to be posted in Kabul, but the government hasn’t replied.
Afghanistan is seen as a no-win political issue in Canada, so debate is muted. When Chris Alexander, a former Canadian ambassador and senior UN official in Afghanistan – now a Conservative Party candidate in Ontario – penned a blistering indictment of the Pakistan army’s complicity in supporting the Taliban, there were no political echoes here.
In Kandahar, the provincial reconstruction team has been handed over to the Americans, and Canadians have a smaller role. The Afghanistan task force, the central Canadian government team spearheading strategy in Ottawa, has shrunk, and its tempo slowed, according to sources familiar with its work. Aid organizations proposing new projects in Afghanistan have been told to wait till the direction is set.
The July Kabul conference that was supposed to set a new Afghan-led international strategy called for diverting more aid through the Karzai government and to fund efforts to “reconcile” insurgents – but the Harper government, frustrated by past failures, is still monitoring progress on corruption and is wary of reconciliation programs after past initiatives have failed.
Here, the lowering of the tone about parliamentary elections is part of a broader quiet about Afghanistan.
Campbell Clark writes on foreign affairs in Ottawa
