Afghanistan: Quiet before the storm??

Afghanistan: Quiet before the Storm??

It is surprisingly quiet in Kabul considering there are less than five weeks to the elections. The occasional parliamentary candidate is being killed as well as a few Afghan election workers but especially in Kabul things are quiet. The months campaigning starts 18th August but this is likely to just be some radio and TV slots and some horse dealing with local leaders. Traditionally whole villages have voted the same and this is likely to be the same even with the secret ballot. There were 250 candidates about to be rejected from the ballot because they had not disarmed but apparently within a few weeks all but 17 had disarmed or were in the process of doing so. In reality the Joint Election Management Board (JEMB) realized the impossibility of verifying disarmament in such a short time and that rejecting a lot of candidates would likely mean violence and possible disruption of the elections. The upper house of parliament will be chosen by Karzai, provincial councils and district councils. Thirty percent each. There are no clear guidelines of what the provincial councils will do and more importantly if they will be paid and the district council elections scheduled for late next year are unlikely to happen. District boundaries and district power is a very hot issue which is why district elections were removed from these elections. With the single non transferable vote political parties are discouraged and everyone is going to be out for himself.

In Kabul there ate 400 candidates for about 23 seats. Looking through the ballot paper and choosing might take a while. Of course the elections financially and logistically can not be replicated. Nationals have not been trained and it is unlikely the international community will fork out $49m again. They have taken their time this time. If the election schedule is followed then Afghanistan would have over one election a year. Totally impractical. So the Transitional Afghan government and the UN will leave Afghanistan with an election they can not repeat even if it was the correct type of election for the country. Still the fashionable young UN election crowd will be off to their next election party.

Of the women candidates 50 withdrew their candidacy. The head of elections for Kabul told me that it was not due to intimidation but they had told him it was because they felt unsafe and were worried about security. Seem to be splitting hairs to me.

The Provincial Council elections are even more confusing than the Parliamentary elections. No one seems to know what they will do, power they will have and if they are paid positions.

After the elections I think the government will come to a standstill as all the new parliamentary candidates claim their cars and offices and start making and breaking alliances as they try to secure as much power as possible. Also it will be the time to sort out scores with local leaders who promised their people would vote for you but did not. There will be a lot of heavily armed violent men who will be bad losers.

A hand grenade was found in the draw of the receptionist in IOM, the organization I recently worked for. Apparently a female staff member, who used to work for me, had a running feud with the receptionist who she thought had stolen her money. I know she does not let go of things easily and eventually last Thursday was fired. On the Sunday she was seen going into the IOM office without any apparent reason and later a hand grenade was found I the receptionist’s desk draw without the pin in it. Obviously another Al Qada attack!

A friend of mine running elections in Logar province had a bomb put under the bonnet of one of her election cars which blew up in her secure compound. While she was telling me this in Kabul she had a call to say that a rocket had just missed her compound.

Badakshan, the province in the far North East has the highest maternal mortality in the world and in the history of records. Of all births 6.5% mothers die in child birth. The main reason for this is child marriage. Some are married as young as 7 years old to old men. They are injured by the sex and child birth even if they do not die. The child also has a good chance of dieing or being deformed physically or mentally. We, UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), are having a campaign with the ministry of women’s affairs against child marriage. In the next week we will be bringing mullahs from all over the country to Kabul for a workshop on child marriage with the hope they will declare a fatwa against child marriage and take messages about the health effects back to their home provinces. This will be followed by radio messages, TV programmes, a film and hopefully seeing someone prosecuted. Political egos are getting in the way though with ministers not wanting to share the limelight.

Also UNFPA (UN agency I now work for) will produce 10,000 copies of a book called ‘Our County My Role’ next month. It encourages women’s participation in politics and civil society and looks at it from an international, political, Afghan and Islamic point of view and includes 6 workshops. It will be also I English. I will put it on a couple of websites.

Kabul is now hot and dusty with frequent dust storms. Some areas in the north are up to 50 degrees centigrade. Many internationals are planning to leave the county for the elections so justifying their hazard pay. It maybe a hot couple of months.