Karzai Election Story

The lead article in today’s New York Times is titled, “Afghan Tribal Leaders Say Karzai’s Team Stole Votes.” It describes the increasing number of complaints about the recent election there and provides one nearly irrefutable vignette. The story recounts events on one day in one district, but it rings of the truth.

According to the governor of a district called Shorabak, the tribal leader there decided to endorse Hamid Karzai’s opponent, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. A great celebration was held because typically all the members of the tribe follow the leader, and this meant a nearly unanimous vote. On election day, however, the ballot boxes were never delivered, and the governor walked to the district headquarters where he saw police stuffing the ballot boxes. Then, the results were announced as 23,900 votes, all in favor of Mr. Karzai.

In my opinion, that’s the problem with trying to export American democracy to other countries. In order to avoid this sort of corruption, there has to be a cultural background of accepted norms as well as strong governmental institutions. Building these components takes time, and it is very difficult to stop the abuse of power otherwise.

Maybe, there needs to be a stronger international presence, and it should go beyond just monitoring the results. It needs to stand in and work the machinery for the first couple of elections before handing it over to local governments. Just as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund prop up third-world financial systems, we need an International Election Organization to avoid events such as the debacle of the election process in Afghanistan.