Democracy is about more than elections for Afghanistan Ottawa - TopicsExpress



          

Democracy is about more than elections for Afghanistan Ottawa Citizen By Corey Levine July 17, 2014 With John Kerry’s announcement that the two men vying to be the next Afghan president had both consented to a full audit of the election results, it was official: the United States was now in control of Afghanistan’s electoral process. The day before, the Secretary of State had ridden in on his white horse and succeeded in getting Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani to agree to a deal that will eventually lead to a national unity government, whoever is ultimately the victor. This is a major coup for Kerry, given the famously internecine world of Afghan politics. Both candidates had been accusing each other of massive electoral fraud from the run-off vote that took place in June. There was also talk that Abdullah, the frontrunner in the first round only to end up significantly behind in the second round, was planning to set up a “parallel government.” If the agreement holds and the winner is able to successfully pick up the reins of power from the outgoing president Hamid Karzai, it will mark the first transition from one nominally democratically elected leader to another for the country. Both Afghanistan and the international community need this. For the international community a smooth transition will show the naysayers who claim that Afghanistan is worse off today than when the world collectively showed up on its doorstep in the tumultuous aftermath of 9/11. Despite massive military and economic intervention, some argue that Afghanistan remains mired in a cesspool of corruption, underdevelopment and political uncertainty, because of the very efforts of the international community. There are also many in Canada, and elsewhere, who wonder what was gained from the billions of dollars spent and the lives sacrificed in the attempt to turn Afghanistan from a third world feudal theocracy under the Taliban into a functioning democratic nation-state. As 2014 winds down and the last of the foreign troops prepare to depart the country, a successful transition of power would put to rest the fear that the country will implode on their withdrawal. And it props up the belief that the world was right to intervene in the first place. Although the political handover would be more symbolic than anything else, Afghanistan also needs a smooth transition, for the sense of stability and accomplishment that it will offer the Afghan people. Welcome news as the insurgency continues to make inroads and the civilian death toll rises. If the deal for a national unity government succeeds, despite being brokered by the Americans, it will be due to the Afghans themselves. Political horsetrading is a necessary component to ruling a country that is fractured along ethnic, linguistic, religious and tribal lines. As such, elections are almost irrelevant to the process of governing the country. They legitimate those in power in the eyes of western democracies and provide its citizens with a collective voice in who presides over the country. But a national unity government will show Afghans the art of the possible far more than elections can at this juncture. As the cliché goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ And neither were functioning democratic nation-states. It has taken Canada more than 100 years to get to this point. But between the robo-call chicanery, the Senate expense scandals, and the recent Fair Elections Act which potentially threatens to disenfranchise thousands of Canadians, we may not be all that much closer to this ideal than the Afghans are.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 09:19:36 +0000

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