As Aghanistan goes to the polls after almost 25 years of conflict, will peace and democracy be the winners? Report by Malcolm Doney and Martin Wroe.

DFID in Afghanistan.

The early summer sun beats down on a remote village in the hills of Panjao, a district in the central highlands of Afghanistan, and a swirling wind flings gusts of dust into the faces of people in the street. Many of the adults in the area - around 500 in all - are attending a concert in the local school. But this is not simply entertainment - it could be democracy in the making. Mixed in with the drama, comedy and singing is a 20-minute traditional Hazaragi music presentation in which the songs focus on how ordinary Afghan people can register to take part in the upcoming national elections.

After nearly a quarter of a century of conflict, the people of Afghanistan are gearing up to elect their own Parliament and President this Autumn. But western style democracy is a curiosity to this fiercely independent people, proud of their culture and history. In a very short space of time a (largely illiterate) electorate will have to get their heads around the notion of secret ballots and a single transferable vote. Not least of the hurdles the country faces is registering the 11 million adults who are eligible to vote when war has blown identity documentation to bits.

“It does pose special problems,” says Reg Austin, Chief Technical Adviser to the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) in Afghanistan, whose previous experience includes helping the UN run elections in East Timor and Cambodia. “But the point of the exercise is not just the registration and polling but to build up the Afghan capacity to deal with government.”

After a slow start, the registration process, is picking up pace. At the time of going to press, nearly 5 million have been registered, with some 37 per cent of them women - a sizeable share given the country’s recent history under the Taliban. In districts, such as Panjao, where more than 12,000 have registered since early May, up to half are women. Elsewhere the figures are less promising.

Fifty metres from Austin’s office in the UNAMA compound, on the borders of Kabul, a warehouse is packed with winking computer screens, as scores of staff process new registrations - expected to peak at 100,000 a day. This is the centre of co-ordination for a nationwide programme of democratic education which features everything from radio broadcasts and street theatre to comic strip booklets and giant flip charts.

“The situation in Afghanistan is unique,” says Austin. “Uniquely difficult.” This is not a UN run election, but one in which the UN is advising and supporting the Afghan authorities, because security difficulties beyond the country’s main cities meant UN staff could not be guaranteed personal safety. The process has been ‘Afghanized’ - the electoral authority, the JEMB, consists of 13 members: six from the Afghan Interim Election Commission, five appointed by Special Representative of the Secretary-General and two non-voting members.

Within weeks of the overthrow of the Taliban in November 2001, representatives of the country’s ethnic, social and political groups met in Germany to sign the Bonn Agreement, a two-year timetable for securing peace and reconciliation and establishing an Interim Administration headed by President Hamid Karzai. The Conference agreed to conduct an electoral process and this is it.

At the end of May the electoral law was published by President Karzai, providing the legal framework for holding nationwide election for the presidency, parliament, provincial and district councils. The overall goal of the law is to give all Afghan citizens the opportunity to express their will through free, secret, universal, and direct ballots, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, geographical location, race, language, gender or social status.

Ambitious it is, and fraught with risks, as Austin points out, recalling his experience in Cambodia where he was involved in smoothing a democratic path after the war was over. “Here the war is, in some parts of the country, still going on. This makes it particularly difficult for us to manage the registration process, for example in the south of the country, where security is not guaranteed.”

While Afghanistan will always have to live with the Hindu Kush mountain range dividing the northern provinces from the rest of the country, the geographical divide is accentuated by the division of language and culture. Very broadly, the northern Dari-speaking ethnic groups have been opposed to the Pashtun-speaking southern peoples from whom the Taliban arose. There is a fear that if large numbers register and vote in the north, but few take part in the South, the lopsided result could cause further resentment and threaten the prospects for a peaceful future. Austin’s task is clear. “We have to show that everyone in the country, regardless of their ethnic origin or background, has a chance to be represented in free and fair elections.”

The fall of the Taliban signalled a new era for this land-locked country, squeezed between Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Pakistan. But there was both promise and threat. The promise was that after 23 years of internal and external conflict, one of the poorest countries in the world might finally be able to build a stable, democratic country, reducing poverty and securing human rights. The threat was that, without sufficient international support, the transition to peaceful democracy would be railroaded by the vested interests of traditional ethnic rivalries with escape from poverty remaining a pipe dream.

Nearly three years on, the situation is finely balanced. On the plus side, after five years of drought, the harvest leapt by 80 per cent in 2003. Underpinned by the stabilising presence of the international community, economic growth jumped by 30 per cent. Some 2.3 million refugees have returned from Pakistan and Iran while more than 4 million children - a third of them girls - have returned to school. The opening of Standard Chartered Bank in January heralded the arrival of vital domestic and international banking services. In the capital Kabul, stabilised by the presence of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a rapidly increasing bustle of entrepreneurial activity is evident almost everywhere. And in Kabul’s infamous national stadium where the Taliban tortured prisoners, football is played, boxing matches take place and Afghan athletes train - athletes who will represent their country in this year’s Olympics for the first time in 24 years.

And yet… Critics point out that change is neither as fast nor as sustainable as it might be. Many claim that the international commitment to Afghanistan was overtaken by events in Iraq, with funds, resources and attention subsequently diverted. They add that, Kabul notwithstanding, the country continues to experience poor security which is likely to hamper the registration and voting process. They point with dismay at the slow progress on training an effective police force, especially approaching an election process vulnerable to intimidation and corruption. Furthermore, signs of economic growth mask the fact that the opium economy is rampant, comprising up to half the country’s GDP.

So how different is daily life for ordinary people? “Look at me,” says Shafiq, who makes a living as a driver in the capital. “I am taking my children to school every day now. There are more businesses, there are more shops and the roads are better. Before, my wife had to stay at home under the Taliban, now women can go out, we can sometimes eat in a restaurant, go shopping. Yes, it is a slow process and there is still conflict, but life is improving for us.”

In Kabul, the signs of change are evident on roadside billboards promoting mobile phones and other 21st century technologies. The employment market is improving, while construction work is evident everywhere - all the more striking given the dusty grey backdrop of bombed out buildings and shelled ruins illustrating Kabul’s disastrous recent history of conflict. Peeping out of many a derelict building are the signs of resurgence - furniture makers, carpenters, market stalls selling shoes and clothes.

But is this just a blip before the inevitable return of factionalism, fundamentalism or both?

“Some people in rural areas still have the Taliban mentality, especially in the south,” explains Massoud Hoseiny, 22, a photographer whose family fled to exile in Iran when he was a child. He returned only after the fall of the Taliban. “It will take time for democracy to happen, the people do want it and those of us who have lived in other countries, who know something about democracy, we can help it to take root here in Afghanistan.”

Marzia Barcel, founder of the Afghan Women Judges Association, agrees. Democracy may be taking its time but the fact that it is arriving at all is not something to take for granted. She has crystal clear memories of life under the Taliban - particularly for women. She only has to look around to see women wearing scarves in place of the burka, women going to work or doing shopping, girls in their distinctive black trousers and white headscarves on their way to school, to see the change in her society.

Yet away from the capital, there is no pretending that many women who should be registering for the vote have yet to understand the issues. Development, she says with a weary smile, takes a long time. “Rome was not built in a day - Afghanistan was destroyed over 25 years and it will take us decades to rebuild it.” We should not be surprised that all women have not leapt into the job market. “In a family if I ask if the wife goes out to work, she says that her husband brings the food and drink and she has no education. It is more likely to be the next generation of women who will be looking for jobs - we cannot change a culture in a couple of years.”

Under the Taliban, Marzia organised a secret programme of education for girls at her home - risking her safety and sometimes her life to offer girls a start in life which the fundamentalist Islamic regime denied them. She is proud that many of the girls she taught are now working for international organisations in helping to rebuild the country - and that the new Parliament, by law, must include 25 per cent of women.

“We have to find more qualified women to take up these positions, we have to improve security for them so that they are not scared to do so. As women we used to be hopeless but now we have hope. There was a time when we couldn’t even share our sorrow with each other. But now we can speak and think freely, we can criticize anyone and we enjoy this - we are like a dead person who has come back to life.”

The recurring theme in the challenges the country faces on its journey towards a more peaceful future, is that of DDR - Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration. The historic and intimidating influence of regional commanders with government paid militias who have become de facto warlords with private armies (many with narcotic trade connections) not only threatens the spread of democracy but fuels the growth of corruption.

“People are concerned that DDR is too slow,” says Marzia Meena, of the Afghan Civil Society Forum. “People are worried that someone will be looking over their shoulder when they vote, or that voting boxes will not be secure.”

Armed groups and private armies are a real concern, added Fahim Hakim of the Afghan Human Rights Commission. So too is the explosion of a plethora of ‘mafias’. “There’s a drug mafia, a wood mafia, an oil mafia, a land mafia, there is even an elite mafia, small groups of the elite who are in charge of too many things from the supply of fuel to the awarding of contracts.”

The fear is that intimidation will be used to deter some figures from running for office in Parliament, hamstringing the democratic process from the start. And the slow pace of civil reform is connected to the rise in corruption. Hakim points out that even a Government Minster recently agreed that the trail of corruption led directly to one of his colleagues in government. That said, he believes that the introduction of the national currency should decrease the influence of the warlords by making it easier for central government to collect tax revenues. While the fact that there are now over 300 independent publications in Kabul alone is a healthy sign of growing democracy, “each free to criticise the government”.

The growth of open debate can only be a good thing, he adds, noting the recent and popular launch by the Minister of Culture of a late-night TV round table debate where different political figures argue about contemporary politics like what defines a nation or how to consolidate national unity. “Everyone is talking about it.”

But in the rural areas, among the poorest people, TV debates will not foster democracy - here a different tack is necessary, as Marzia Meena illustrates.

“With the majority of our people uneducated, illiterate, they will find it difficult to understand the process of ballot boxes, slips of paper, names of candidates. But we have been working with flip charts and drawings and pictures and we are training people in civic education.”

The success of teams like hers are vital for the success of the electoral process - not least in dealing with popular myths.

“We have to deal with misunderstandings of democracy - for example in one meeting a man said to me, ‘Democracy means I will not be able to control my wife and children’.”

Like the Taliban before, says Marzia, people all too easily read into Islam their own popular prejudices.

“In fact people like him are misunderstanding Islam, Mohammed was a leader of democratic values, Islam has a lot of democratic values in it - but Islam has been misused. The real Islam is not about men wearing beards or women wearing burkas, it is about human dignity, democratic values, freedom, equality and the common welfare.”

Explaining that there is more than one way to be a good Muslim, turns out to be central to the process of democratic education in Afghanistan and vital for the future prospects of the country. “It is not easy, it is tough but we have to do this because we are the citizens of Afghanistan and we don’t simply want to pass the problems on to the next generation.

Talk to enough people in Afghanistan and you will soon be met by the disaster scenario: a failure to register voters, intimidation and poor security means that the Pashtun south will be disenfranchised and angry, and that the law of the gun will reassert itself. But there is another more optimistic and, it is to be hoped, more realistic scenario. This is that the Afghans’ genius for last-minute improvisation will deliver, if not mature democracy, then at least a first, faltering electoral step - which will be significant enough for enough people to feel that progress towards proper representation is being made.

Marzia Meena believes Afghanistan will pull something out of the fire, because the people themselves demand it. “I am very optimistic. We are in close touch with the people and they are good judges of what is good and what is bad.” They tell her the elections have a chance. She shrugs emphatically. “We have no option. Without democracy we cannot achieve positive and sustainable peace.”

Images © Fardin Waezi/AINA and Massoud Wasiq/AINA