Afghan Elections, Reminds Me Of America
All 15 opposition candidates to interim President Hamid Karzai declared Afghanistans first democratic election a fraud and refused to recognize the results. And this was before the polls closed.
It turns out there were a few problems mostly having to do with with people voting more than once. Kind of the opposite of our elections where people are denied the ability to vote even once or to have their one vote counted. Although there has been the charge that some voters in New York and Florida had been able to vote in both states back in 2000.
I guess it just goes with the territory with a representative democracy, if there is a free election there will be a free-for-all at the polls.
So what might happen in Afghanistan? My guess is that they will have to have another election, otherwise Karzai will be considered illegitimate by many in the country. Oops, again like the United States as many still believe George Bush was not legitimately elected as president. Of course the difference in Afghanistan is that at least one candidate is a regional warlord.
From the article I link, "If the election is questioned or even annulled—the least likely outcome—then many Afghan voters will feel disenfranchised. If the election results stand then a candidate like Qanooni, who represents the powerful Tajik ethnic minority group, could demand a high price for his political cooperation, thus undermining the election results. Either way, the election that was supposed to have brought Afghans together may end up dividing them further."
Again it sounds like America, where did I hear that "I'm a uniter not a divider" slogan? Oh, yeah, George Bush in 2000. And four years later I see a very divided country.
Afghan story... Link
It turns out there were a few problems mostly having to do with with people voting more than once. Kind of the opposite of our elections where people are denied the ability to vote even once or to have their one vote counted. Although there has been the charge that some voters in New York and Florida had been able to vote in both states back in 2000.
I guess it just goes with the territory with a representative democracy, if there is a free election there will be a free-for-all at the polls.
So what might happen in Afghanistan? My guess is that they will have to have another election, otherwise Karzai will be considered illegitimate by many in the country. Oops, again like the United States as many still believe George Bush was not legitimately elected as president. Of course the difference in Afghanistan is that at least one candidate is a regional warlord.
From the article I link, "If the election is questioned or even annulled—the least likely outcome—then many Afghan voters will feel disenfranchised. If the election results stand then a candidate like Qanooni, who represents the powerful Tajik ethnic minority group, could demand a high price for his political cooperation, thus undermining the election results. Either way, the election that was supposed to have brought Afghans together may end up dividing them further."
Again it sounds like America, where did I hear that "I'm a uniter not a divider" slogan? Oh, yeah, George Bush in 2000. And four years later I see a very divided country.
Afghan story... Link
posted by jon at 3:10 PM
1 Comments:
Scary. I wish the whole world would read this blog.
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